Adventures in KSP: Roving Eve

In this series of posts I'll tell my progression (and my throwbacks) at the brilliant Kerbal Space Program. I have currently set my sights to the neighboring planets, Eve and Duna. Join me in my quest for exploratory glory!

After losing a rover en route to Eve, I refitted the design with solar panels and some scientific instruments, which I formerly wasn't able to employ due to resolution-issues with the interface. Other than the added solar-panels on the tanks of the nuclear engine stage and the detectors on the front, there wasn't a difference to the former version, as I was confident that I could actually get this thing to Eve, given that I didn't run out of electricity.

Nothing but two large rockets strapped to an automatic car, really...

Gamification of Christmas Gifts

This Christmas my family got together as we used to, each bringing one general-purpose gift that everyone could at least technically enjoy. To handle distribution of those as well as the basket full of cookies and chocolate that my grandmother brought along, I made a simple dice-game that gave the whole thing randomness, competition, and something akin to an economy. Let me elaborate:

There is a real gift for each family member in a santa-bag. At the end, everyone should have one of these. As they are wrapped up, you only know the contents of your own gift, but you can guess by size and shape (and temperature, more on that later) whether you want them or not. The grandma-stuff is bonus material and does not need to be distributed evenly, thus allowing for an actual winner of Christmas Eve.

The first phase works in the following way: Each player/family member takes turns rolling a pair of dice. A pair of either 1s, 2s, or 3s allow the player to take one bonus gift from the grandma-box. Any six and the player picks a regular gift from the bag. A pair of 4s, 5s, or 6s means the player must exchange their own regular gift with one that another player has already taken. The first phase ends whenever all regular gifts have been distributed (and are now secured for their respective owner). Over the course of the first phase, a mystery frozen-box my father had brought as a gift was the most coveted item, changing hands several times with my cousin and his wife trading it back and forth between them when they'd have to trade in order to keep it in their household. My uncle got it in the end and as it turned out that it was full of delicious frozen wild-boar steak, the calamity from those who had lost this prize was great.

The second phase kicks into gear with the war for the remaining grandma-gifts. A pair of 1s, 2s or 3s still means you can take one from the box but a pair of 4s, 5s, and 6s now means you can steal one of the grandma-gifts from someone else. On a six, one would unwrap their own regular gift. The phase ends once all grandma-gifts are out and all regular gifts are unwrapped. During this phase, as the market for sweets and cookies was definitely saturated, the fight was on over a bag of noodles, of all things. It ended up with my older cousin but I was able to strike a deal with her afterwards, exchanging it for something else. Cooked and ate them yesterday, tasting the sweet taste of victory over both my other cousin and my uncle.

So, the whole gift-ceremony took well over an hour and everyone was having a blast. I recommend gamification of your gift-giving ceremony, if your folks are up to it. A belated merry Christmas to those of you to whom it applies from MadZabGaming!

Adventures in KSP - Preparing Eve Exploration

In this series of posts I'll tell my progression (and my throwbacks) at the brilliant Kerbal Space Program. I have currently set my sights to the neighboring planets, Eve and Duna. Join me in my quest for exploratory glory!

So, Eve's the next target. Close to the sun than Kerbin is, Eve is a dense planet with gravity that is a bit higher than on Kerbin and an atmosphere that is quite dense too. Having landed there during a play in a previous version of the game, I know that the planet is pretty much impossible to explore with a manned vessel if you intend to get your astronaut back to Kerbin. This is what made me chose this as my next exploration target over Duna, which I intend to land a Kerbal on. Eve is going to get robotic exploration only, because the only thing I could think of that would get back out of that atmosphere and gravity-well would be some sort of really efficient space-plane and I'm horrible at designing and flying aircraft so forget it.

Adventures in KSP - Minmus Exploration

In this series of posts I'll tell my progression (and my throwbacks) at the brilliant Kerbal Space Program. The current object of my exploration is now Minmus, the outer moon of the home planet Kerbin. Let's get into it!

Getting to Minmus is a bit harder than getting to the Mun, as it is quite a bit further away from Kerbin and its much lower mass means you have to hit it somewhat more precisely in order to get caught by its field of gravity. Landing there on the other hand is easy as pie, since it has very obvious flat areas that have a zero-elevation and the low gravity means you don't have to reverse-thrust to much in order to land softly enough. All in all a good test-run for interplanetary travel. Thus the first ship I designed was more of a test-craft than a mission-specific design. Let me explain:

Adventures in KSP: Some Housekeeping

In this series of posts I'll tell my progression (and my throwbacks) at the brilliant Kerbal Space Program. The current object of my exploration is the moon, or Mun as it is called in KSP. Let's get into it!

So, before going any further into deep space, I decided that current projects, like my presence on the Mun and the Kerbal Space Station (henceforth abbreviated to KSS) needed some refinement. I had read up on the bug that had destroyed my first Munbase and had found a somewhat working solution to it (editing the safe-file) should it come up again. First order of business was enlarging and remodeling the KSS though. I didn't like the thruster-section I had docked to it and it would need more docking-ports than it currently had in order to grow into something like the orbital platform I had in mind. Getting to work on the space-ship designer, I constructed a re-usable orbital vehicle designed for docking with parts and then moving them about in space, called the Deliverator. The Deliverator was the first segment I sent up into orbit, thus allowing me to send any other object up to a somewhat stable orbit and then be able to go fetch it with the Deliverator.

Adventures in KSP - Salvaging the Munar operation

In this series of posts I'll tell my progression (and my throwbacks) at the brilliant Kerbal Space Program. The current object of my exploration is the moon, or Mun as it is called in KSP. Let's get into it

After having lost MunBase Alpha to a game glitch / massive malfunction in the reverse-thruster, Ed Kerman is alone on the Mun. He has the rover and even a MunShot I lander but the latter doesn't have the fuel to get back to Kerbin so using it to get home isn't an option. I imagine the Kerbals at the space center working feverishly to salvage the Mun situation. At this moment I really want to go further out, explore new places but I can't leave the situation on Mun in shambles like that. I need a permanent presence there. So I launch another MunBase Alpha, identical to the first one. During the approach to the crater where the rover is waiting, I notice another anomaly, sparkling on the ground. It's on the edge of another crater. That is interesting, I decide to slow the lateral movement of the base down to land closer to it. Have Ed drive there in the rover, then stage an expedition to it. It never gets that far. The station runs out of fuel during the descent, leaving about three kilometers of drop between it and the ground with nothing to slow it down but the puny RCS-maneuvering thrusters. It slams into the ground, destroying the lander can, killing its occupants. But the habitat is lying there, intact. A place where Ed Kerman could drive the rover in order to finally find shelter?

Adventures in KSP - Disaster and Despair on the Moon

In this series of posts I'll tell my progression (and my throwbacks) at the brilliant Kerbal Space Program. The current object of my exploration is the moon, or Mun as it is called in KSP. Let's get into it!

The plan was to send an unmanned rover to the Mun and pick up my two stray astronauts who were waiting on the surface. If the vehicle had fuel left after that it could also be used for expeditions around the area - there might be more anomalies around after all. The flight went well and pretty soon the rover was approaching the Munar surface. Disaster almost struck when I tried to slow down above the surface to then detach the rover from its nuclear thruster, which exploded below it. After the dust had settled I checked the rover and, much to my surprise, found it unharmed. Using its RCS-thrusters, I was able to flip it upright and extend the gear - the vehicle was on the Mun and ready, about ten kilometers from my astronaut who was stranded halfway between the MunArch and MunBase Alpha. I went for it.

Adventures in KSP - The MunArch

In this series of posts I'll tell my progression (and my throwbacks) at the brilliant Kerbal Space Program. The current object of my exploration is the moon, or Mun as it is called in KSP. Let's get into it!

Feeling the need to reach the mysterious anomaly as fast as possible, as I was running out of game-time due to some real-life scheduling coming up soon, I decided that the best course of action to reach it fast would be to sent another rocket to the Mun. Now, reaching a specific spot on the Mun is, with my amateurish abilities in orbital physics and piloting, a rather fuel-intensive exercise but I didn't need to get whomever I was sending up there back because now I had a MunBase where they could go after exploring the anomaly. So I fired up another Munshot I, the trusty ship that had sent my first manned Munar mission successfully there and back again, figuring I could use the fuel originally reserved for the return-trip in order to fly the thing to a landing-spot near the anomaly - and then walk the rest on foot.

Adventures in KSP - Anomaly at MunBase Alpha

In this series of posts I'll tell my progression (and my throwbacks) at the brilliant Kerbal Space Program. The current object of my exploration is the moon, or Mun as it is called in KSP. Let's get into it!

So, I didn't have a MunBase in this version yet and only one of my Kerbals had travelled to the Mun and back. The addition of electricity in this version asked for a new design in MunBase. I went and designed the base to be a two-pod affair, with a two-person lander-can on top, below it a habitat that would in theory offer room for four astronauts but go up empty for now, to be filled up later. Below was a fuel-tank and a thruster, eight sturdy landing-legs and, of course, a large asparagus-style four-stage rocket to get the thing to the Mun. On the top I added an RCS (mono propellant for maneuvering-thrusters) tank, a mast and some solar panels to be extended when the thing was landed. I was in good hope when the rocket proved to be enough to get the thing beyond a low Kerbin orbit and on course to the Mun.

Adventures in KSP - Introduction

I've recently re-started playing Kerbal Space Program and, after some fiddling about and learning the new mechanics, I have decided that the game is good for some write-ups to be published here. Today I'll start off with just some introduction on what KSP is and what makes it so fascinating for me (and, apparently, the community).

Kerbal Space Program, still in development and not yet a final product, pulls a rather elegant conceit that taps into aspects of me that I haven't enjoyed as much since having been a child. The concept is simple: KSP doesn't put pressure on you. It does away with superfluous stuff like opposition or competition. In sandbox mode, it just tells you "here is a solar system, with a realistic physics engine. Here is a space-port with realistic bits and pieces for you to put together rockets, planes, probes and rovers. Now have fun with it!". Not more, not less. And then you start to learn and every step feels like you have actually re-treated steps of real-life space-exploration. I was proud when I managed to get a rocket into orbit for the first time. Long practise and trial-and-erring led to me actually landing on Mun (the moon of the home planet in the system), before there were even landing-gears and such luxuries in the game. By now, trips to the moon are somewhat routine for me. Next target? I don't know - Eve (Venus)? Duna (Mars)? One of the moons of Jool, the outer gas giant, which are supposed to hold ancient alien artifacts?

Thoughts on Pixels: Canabalt

I have recently started to play Canabalt again, mostly because I needed something to kill time while on public transport, and it still is a strikingly simple yet elegant game to play. Let's analyze a bit.

I needed something to play on my Android-phone. Something that starts up and ends quickly, as I would sometimes only play in bursts of three or four minutes. Something that works on a small resolution, because my phone is rather small. Something with simple but reliable input, preferably being among the very few Apps that actually recognize my slide-out keyboard because I highly dislike gaming with a touchscreen where my thumb obscures a third of the screen and the input precision is less than good anyways. Temple Run, while still being touch-controlled, was alright for a while but whenever the bus or subway train I was on turned, the phones sensors would interpret that as a tilt and that would lead to in-game troubles. So I came back to Canabalt, downloaded myself the HD-Paid-Version. It is as glorious as I remember.

The appropriate thing for the game to do in any situation I want to play things on my cellphone in is in the minimalistic and simple input. There are only two variables to player-input in Canabalt, one being when you press jump and the other being how long you press it. That's all. The first four seconds of the game are always the same, putting three obstacles in your way, first two random office-objects, then the drop behind that window. Only if you miss all three jumps, you will fall to your death. Then the game is, of course, on.

One Page Dungeon Project 1 - a sneak peak

I have decided to participate in the next One Page Dungeon Contest, which is still a few months away but who knows how long I'll take to actually get this thing done? Might as well use that creative energy of mine now.

So here's what I intend to do: I've made this vertical dungeon (in a broad sense), a bunker situated in an abandoned missile silo from the cold war era. I made the graphics with Google SketchUp and then edited them with Gimp because I couldn't draw if my life depended on it. Now the idea is that, while my One Page Dungeon will have an urban fantasy theme with a satanic cult and vampires and all that, the graphics can be used to interpret them as pretty much any scenario that sensibly could take place in a private or governmental bunker. I mean, people can actually buy these things today...

So here I present a small glimpse at my current state of graphical representation, the dungeon-map so to speak, although the full version is, of course, much larger and more detailed:

As you can see here, there is a house topside and the missile silo itself has been fitted with floors, making it a vertical dungeon with quite a few floors to cover. I'll post more whenever this thing grows beyond the preliminary state - I'm currently writing descriptions on everything, giving the whole thing story, theme and antagonists.

Character Progress in Games - some thoughts

Whilst playing Kerbal Space Program recently, I've been thinking about the different types of progress characters in games, in both video- and pen & paper RPG, make towards overcoming challenges set by the game or a game master better. Here's what I've come up with regarding character growth in games.

Three types of character growth, actually, if you completely disregard story, lore, context and all these things that get in the way of talking about pure game-mechanics. Of these three types of growth, only one is immanent in the game itself, which is the first I'll talk about here: Character growth.

Thoughts on Pixels - Grinding should be fun

Or how I learned to stop playing Oblivion and love gaming instead...

So, here it is: I stopped playing Oblivion six months ago. Martor is on ice, probably forever. Why is that? Allow me to explain and get into a broader topic on gaming in general: Grinding. The word itself implies something tedious and that opens up a lot of questions on why one would even want to play something that is based on grind. Follow me into a new article. Also, I'll write more regularly again, now that I'm back from Asia. I promise to all three of you who may or may not care. God this place has fallen apart after my mom died...

Aaaaanyways. Grinding. WTF? Aren't games supposed to be fun? Well I didn't really think about it for a long time. I had stopped playing Oblivion after day three of my experiment (which was like two months after day 1 but it was day three of actually playing) but I didn't really analyze why. I just didn't feel like playing it anymore. It felt horribly tedious. The magic was gone.

So, last month I started playing a new game, FTL. If you like space-exploration, roguelikes or having adventures in general, you should check out some Let's Plays on Youtube and then decide to buy it (or not, you boring, boring person!). I played it quite a bit and then, at one time upon re-starting, the usual hint at the bottom of the starting message told me that I should stay in what the game itself called 'the grinding sectors' for longer if possible as to gather resources for the later stages of the game while it was still somewhat harmless to do so. This got me thinking, because while I had done just that before already, having found out fast that getting to the end quickly is a recipe for getting overwhelmed real soon. But it never felt like a grind to me. Why? Because this was the meat of the game. It was fun. Why do we play games? Because they are fun, mostly. Well they may evoke other emotions (Silent Hill 2 certainly wasn't fun and Shadow of the Colossus made me feel like the weight of the world was on my shoulders but I digress) but tedium shouldn't be one of them.

Dwarf Fortress Chronicles: The first six years

I've been playing Dwarf Fortress for a while now, slowly getting into the game, reading online guides, the wiki etc., battling the interface more than anything. I started out simple, with small fortresses and simple chains of productions, the dwarves only getting one or two different kinds of food, not producing my own weaponry etc. I cannot claim to have gotten too much deeper into the game but I slowly learn more and more game mechanics. This is my third attempt at a large and long-term game. The world is set to be full of goblins because in my first two attempts I never got an invasion besides the horrific and unstoppable attack by undead hordes (those of you who don't play DF may not realize that even blood and hair left in your kitchen will reanimate and kill your populace. And killing a zombie involves smashing every one of its fingers to paste...). This fortress was going to be different. Here come the first six years.

I had chosen the site of my fortress wisely. There were trees and a river, so I would have wood and fresh water. There were hills and mountains to make an easily accessible first level, digging out the first rooms of the fortress horizontally, to expand into the deep at a later state. My seven dwarves were well trained for the initial tasks a fortress would hold. When they arrived and got to work on their new homestead, the mood was cheerful and filled with hope.

The first things that were dug out were a work-area, a small underground farm, storage rooms and quarters. Then a dining hall. Then, with the first migrants arriving, expanding of living quarters. I soon had a well going food economy going, the dwarves were planting tasty Plumphelmets underground and wild strawberries, the seeds of which had been purchased from an elven caravan, above ground. There were three things the fortress would need before it could hope to survive actual attacks: A cistern to hold large amounts of water, so that a siege could be stopped at an outer wall, and a working militia to actually do the defending part.

Angry Birds rule the World

Yeah, I said it. A lot of gamers hate the game. I play it occasionally, whenever they update new maps and I'm sitting on the bus to work. Never really thought about it. But now that I'm travelling through Asia again (something I'm bound to do every once-in-a-while), I realize that I've been ignorant at the scale that this phenomenon of a game has around the planet. Let's talk about it.

When I first played Angry Birds, I was late to the party. That was summer last year, on the laptop of my in-laws in Mongolia. It was a PC version, localized and translated into Mongolian, something I found odd as most stuff with the exception of movies isn't translated into Mongolian, because it is a developing nation of only a few million, not really a large market to tap. Was that version fan-made? Possibly. It didn't matter all that much anyways, as I quickly found out: The game is designed to be playable by someone entirely illiterate, like young children or people who cannot even read Latin letters. The games cut-scenes and little cartoons explaining how different types of birds work like the comics that explained weapons in World War II to illiterate resistance fighters in the Pacific are simple and can be understood by at least 90% of human beings living on earth right now. It's brilliant in its simple elegance, really. Like gaming is a universal language or something poetic like that. That was what I thought last year.

Zombies in Hamburg: A little thought experiment part 2

In the last post I started the little Gedankenspiel on how a supernatural reanimation of corpses to zombies here in my home-city of Hamburg would play out, which can be useful as a backdrop for a role-playing campaign. Let's keep this show going by moving on to the next stage of the infestation of the now spreading Z and the finally reacting government agencies from outside the city.


So, let's see of things are going to turn out...

Zombies in Hamburg: A little thought experiment part 1

A few years ago, I hosted an roleplaying one-shot session for a few friends of mine with a simple conceit: You're playing realistic characters in a zombie apocalypse here in our home city of Hamburg, Germany. The second largest city in the country, we have the Bernhardt-Nocht-Institute for tropical diseases so there we would have the cause for the zombie-outbreak. I excessively used google maps and our own knowledge of the city for the campaign, which had three random survivors simply trying to reach the central police station from a southern part of the city, having to cross the port and the river in the process.

Now if you're going to play in the current day, why not take a place everyone at the table knows and can relate to? Where all you need maps-wise is available on line? Exactly. This has lead me to a new thought experiment though: How would a zombie-infestation in my city actually turn out? Let's find out!

Another Artemis Play Session

So, the bi-weekly bunch of Artemis-players met up again the other week to play the game once again. And we decided to get the difficulty to max. Well we did have a Dreadnought. And basically expected to die. What followed was some of the most epic and intense role-playing/video-gaming experiences I have ever had...

So difficulty ten. Space to "interesting" (as "very interesting" tends to litter enough black holes and mine-fields as to seriously obstruct the AI invasion). We in the mightiest of the ships that players can have, the intimidating Dreadnought-class. We had enough people for all stations. And I was the captain. I didn't really expect us to get far. Difficulty 8 had killed us quickly enough before. It was just a matter of doing things with our backs against the wall.

We came into the battle guns/nuclear torpedoes blazing, quickly wiping out the first few of the vast waves of enemy ships. Docking with one of the stations, we re-supplied. Looking at the incredible number of enemy fleets on the long-range scanner, I decided that we couldn't defend all of the stations and would concentrate on one of them, in order to keep things going for as long as possible. Having stocked up on ammunition and fuel, we engaged the nearest waves of enemy ships.

The first one went well, as we used ECMs to take out shields and then followed up with nukes, pelting the flottilla with heavy fire-power until it was over. The second wave got us without heavy weaponry though and the station was too close to the battle to be docked with. Well, the Dreadnaught does have its main beam weapon, a powerful ray-cannon taking out smaller ships with ease. At this point we had a wholly different problem: We were running out of energy. To conserve fuel, I ordered the shield shut down and all sytems lowered as far as possible and then drag the ship back to the station. That was when the Bird of Prey Skaraan Enforcer uncloaked and opened fire.

Pen & Paper: Some actual play part 2

The party is still split, with one of them stuck in the city in the middle of riots protesting the recend draft for the civil war that is about to ravage the Empire again. Our main host of characters couldn't care less though, as they are stuck with their leader badly wounded in an improvised shelter in the mountains and a group of elite head-hunters with them, suspecting that it is indeed them they're looking for...

The session starts off with a rainstorm pelting down on the mountain-shelter the group has built for themselves (one of them is a carpenter so they're good at things like that). The group-internal animosities have somewhat cooled down and the team of mercs is out hunting so the players decide it's time to talk through what to do about the whole situation. There is a lot of arguing back and forth whom to put the blame on that kids death on once the mercs come back. Should they sacrifice the badly wounded group leader? Should they blame the actual killer, their scout who is currently gone with most of the groups money to get help? Will he even return and come back for them or will he simply spend the money and make himself a nice life for a few months?

Recommendations: June 2012

Better late than never, and skipping the month of May entirely, here's my usual set of recommendations. You may notice that I've talked about some of it before but that doesn't make it any less valid, I'd say!

Podcast of the month: Nerdbound
A venerable and long-running actual-play podcast that started out with a group of guys sitting around a table and has since spread itself to skype-games, an active forum-gaming community and all sorts of different role playing games being played. The guys care about neither strict game-form nor political correctness but if you can cope with their humor, they're one of the most reliably entertaining actual-play podcasts out there. I highly recommend especially their one-shots and anything Warhammer 40k-related.

Blog of the month: Microdungeons
Tony, maker of the excellent and aforementioned How to Host a Dungeon has this little art-blog. He's doing mainly mapping of what he considers microdungeons, meaning anything from a basement to a hollowed-out asteroid to the mind of a kraken-god, charted out on small sheets of paper he draws on. Mostly not directly playable but a joy to look at and get inspired by!


Free game of the month: Spelunky
The old PC-version is still free. As I've talked about this one before quite recently, I won't say much more than this: Play it! Just do it. You can! I believe in you! The rewards are endless!

Pen & Paper: Some Actual Play part 1

So, the bi-weekly gaming-group I have designed that world for and which is now my group of testing guinea pigs with regards to the injury chart I made has played again the other week and I thought I'd share what happened during the session (and before it, to bring you up to speed).


So, the group happens to be in deep shit. They had, tasked by the lord their apprentice-knight-leader, left the safe ground of the Empire, crossing the river into the territories of the barbarian tribes of the North, to aid a local king in a matter that needed intervention by foreigners. Now, Northern Barbarians do sound more terrible than they actually are, being mostly peasant-warriors minding their own business and/or carrying around wooden idols to worship their strange pantheon of gods but neighboring their lands are the swamps and moors inhabited by the Naga Queendoms, of which the entire party was rightfully afraid (except for the animal-trainer-chick from the Kalifate - she'd immediately hatched a plan to get a hold of a Naga egg to start breeding them or something...). After some back and forth the party managed to more or less accidentally escalate the situation between the Nagas, who had captured the local kings son and wanted to trade him for land, and the local king and his men, who had rushed out after the party had returned only with the childs hand (as they had only brought part of the silver intended to pay off the Nagas, the Nagas had only brought part of the prince - Nagas have no concept of respecting health and/or life of humans). The whole thing went terribly wrong with the king and his men and the party of adventurers fighting off one of the Naga Queens and her warrior escort. As the group was well prepared because their alchemist, having let herself into the house of the local barbarian scientist-guy, had developed a skin-effective poison that would hurt Nagas but not humans - bottles were thrown, chemical warfare was invented and the Nagas driven off eventually.

Getting into Roguelikes: Spelunky

In the last post, I gave instructions on how to get started with Transcendence, a shooty roguelike set in space. This time around, we're actually going down into a dungeon, although not in a classical roguelike-fashion, but via old-school jump 'n run gameplay. Let me introduce to you: 

Spelunky

Spelunky is a rather interesting game, the PC version is free here. Grafically, it looks like something that might have come out in the era of the Super NES or its more powerful competitor, the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, as does the gameplay. The mechanics behind all of it though are those of a hardcore roguelike: The levels are procedurally generated, the difficulty is steep and unforgiving (you die, you restart. No save-points or such things), you can loot gold and some items that you may trade in at stores that are inexplicably set in the dungeons depths and you can even worship a goddess via unholy sacrifices in order to gain advantageous items in-game. The mixture of Super Mario and Indiana Jones is, once you get some practise under your belt/fedora hat, highly addictive and can be quite fun.

Getting into Roguelikes: Transcendence

In the last post I wrote about my descent into the deeper pits of roguelike gaming. This time around, I shall help you follow me if you dare, introducing some more mainstreamish roguelikes and how to get started in them, hopefully providing an entry-drug for you future RL-addicts. I'll get into the more serious ones on the next post, so stay tuned for that.

For the average gamer, starting a roguelike can be a harrowing experience. There may be more game mechanics than in your entire other gaming-library combined. There may be a total lack of graphical interface beyond Ascii-coded pseudo-graphics. And there is the incredible, sometimes impossible difficulty. You do not play a roguelike to win, you play it to experience it. In recent years, games, having become more and more mainstream and more and more casual, have become easier and easier, holding your hand all the way through and selling more power-fantasies as they go along. You won't find that in a roguelike. Be aware of these facts when you get started. So where do you start, as the average gamer with not too much patience when it comes to learning long lists of keyboard-commands and interpreting cryptic signs in lieu of nice animations? I'd recommend three radically different (and free) games to get a taste of things you may be getting into, when it comes to roguelikes, introducing one with each post in this series and explaining what to do on your first playthrough. Next up after that we'll delve a bit deeper into the roguelike-dungeons but for now let's start with the more main-streamish. Here's the first one:

Thoughts on Pixels: Getting into Roguelikes, part 1

The other day I realized that I have become quite the avid player of games that could be largely classified as roguelikes. Join me in this two-post essay on how my descent into the depths of low-graphic/high-complexity/high-lethality gaming happened and how you can do it too. It's not as hard as one might think...

It's hard to say at what point I became interested in roguelike games. Some consider Diablo to be a roguelike and I played the first one back in '97 or whenever it came out. Anyhow, the first more recent roguelike I played with intensity was, after a short and rather unsuccessful stint with Elite 2 the roguelike shooter Transcendence, about which I have already written some words here. Some might argue that a top-down shooter isn't really a roguelike but I beg to differ: The procedurally generated world, the random loot, the high difficulty and the customization of your character (or ship) via equipment and enchantments (barrels filled with X) are all there. It's also a good starter but that's going to be topic of the next post. As will be Spelunky and Desktop Dungeons.

Anyways, exploring the world of Transcendence soon wasn't enough. I had heard about the roguelikes, even tried Nethack on my cellphone, being rather put off by the steep difficulty (or random cruelness) and the horrid control scheme. Roguelikes seemed rather scary in their lack of visuals and their steep learning curve when it came to gameplay features. That lessened when I watched the let's plays of Rogue Survivor by Plumphelmetpunk on Youtube. I wanted to live through stories like these too.

Pen & Paper: Full Injury Chart

So, like I said in the last post: Every injury in a gritty RPG should have some sort of flavor. If you, as the GM, don't want the players to accuse you of being too mean or too easy-going on specific players, push the responsibility over to the dice. That's what I'm doing from now on so I made this set of charts. To adapt them to the game-system you're using, consider what in the context of that game would consider a light injury that needs no real treating, a major injury that needs medical attention and a horrible injury that is likely fatal if not immedeatly treated and will leave some permanent damage if you survive.


In my system, where human beings have in between 2 and 10 LP, 1-2 points of damage constitute a light injury, 3-4 is heavy and 5+ is horrible. If your flavor doesn't include where the person was hit, roll a D6 and go 1: left leg, 2: right leg, 3: left arm, 4: right arm, 5: torso, 6: head. Then check what kind of wound is sustained by seeing how much damage was done. Then roll another D6 on the appropriate one of the following charts and interpret the damage according to the type of attack that was sustained:

Playing Oblivion: Day 3 part 9 – Finishing Up some unfinished Business

This is part of an ongoing series. If you want to start at the beginning, go here.

It's early 2012 and I'm playing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Why? Because I (finally) can. Join me on my path to glory and the stabilization of the status quo in almost-Tolkien-land. 

Should my path carry me to Skingrad again, I'll probably try again to talk to the count but for now I go back on the road towards the capital. I meet a dark-elf woman on the road, confused what she may be doing out here on her own, apparently unarmed. There is a conversation-topic related to some quest from back in Skingrad that she says she doesn't trust me enough to talk about. I decide that this is a point in game where I might try to practice/understand the conversation-minigame that indicates Martor intimidate/suck up on people to get on their better side. I fail the first few tries but gain an understanding on how it works, then I bribe the woman to like me anyways. Not that the information she has is of any value for me. Passing the hellgate I jog towards the capital.

Pen & Paper: Injuries and Consequences

There is no injury to the human body that is remotely important enough to be represented in gaming whilst not being of consequence to the injured persons overall ability to function on a physical and/or psychological level. In this post, I'll get into the topic of health points, injuries and the consequences they may or may not have on gaming in pen & paper. Let me state this beforehand: This is about pen & paper. In video-games, where gameplay is (ideally) what draws you to the game and the options of how to deal with any given situation are dramatically more limited than what a storytelling-based game around a table allows for, the following arguments do not usually apply (except in roguelikes. They get away with anything hurting the player-character in my book...)

So, the age-old question on hit-points in games. What do they represent. Different things in different games, I guess. In early DnD, miniatures used to start out all war-game-like with a hit-point each. Having more than one HP seperated the heroic characters from the rabble - they'd keep fighting after recieving wounds that would take an ordinary person out of the battle. Over time and editions and different role-playing systems following in the wake of DnD, there was something like an inflation of HP. While HP are a nice way to tell how healthy/injured your character is, there are a lot of problems with them and they have been adressed by different systems over the years. The FATE-system has its consequences whenever you get hurt a lot, for example. While it can be a pain to keep track of a lot of rules, I find it hard to keep up my suspension of disbelief when I'm near-dead but can still swing a sword well. Most systems thus punish injuries by giving you a malus on die-rolls depending on how injured you are.

Playing Oblivion: Day 3 part 8 – Human again

This is part of an ongoing series. If you want to start at the beginning, go here.

It's early 2012 and I'm playing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Why? Because I (finally) can. Join me on my path to glory and the stabilization of the status quo in almost-Tolkien-land. 

Martor is finally healed but the quest isn't over. I fast-travel to Skingrad to deliver the cure to the count so he can use it on his wife. His secretary/steward/house lizard lady tells me to follow her and leads me down into a rather ominous crypt below the castle, where the count is standing by a bed with a woman on it. He tells me that Melisande is going to wake up his wife so she can take the medicine and pass on peacefully and I can watch if I want. Melisande? She's standing right there in the corner. As I came by horse and she doesn't have one at her house, I really wonder who she got here before me but it's okay. If murderers in movies can off-screen-teleport, I guess it's fair if an ally does it for once.

Telling about the NordCon, day 2

This weekend I was at the NordCon [linked content is in German], which is the largest gaming-convention around here. In this post I'll just tell you what I did on Sunday and how much fun it was. Check out the post about Saturday first, if you like. Again: This post might bore you, just as a forewarning.

My second convention-day was off to a slow start, as these are bound to be. I arrived at 9:30 in the morning, having set a date with a buddy at the Jugger-field for 10:00. He didn't show up, as it had gotten rather late in the mead-tent for him and he was still asleep in his place on the other side of the city. I didn't mind much, met up with another buddy who had brought his kid along and, after having stashed the stroller in the wardrobe, we decided to take a turn through the tabletop-gymn and see what the Warhammer-crowd had crafted to be looked at and ridiculed for the immense expenses they were pumping into their hobby. I used to play darkelves around 9th grade. Then I got a life. Burn! (in all seriousness: I envy and pity the fools who are in the miniatures-hobby. Envy as I have tasted the sweetness of fielding an army that you painted and constructed yourself, having built up a personal relationship with every one of these miniatures over the course of them becoming what they are. I myself am at constant risk to go down that path again, whenever I see a fantastically made custom miniature someone spent so much time, creativity and skill on. Pity because I know how much GW is draining their finances [other companies make it hard to find someone to play against] and how much of a fringe hobby they are following even at a nerdy convention. Their gymn is usually the place with the worst air and the fewest females.)

Telling about the NordCon, day 1

This weekend I was at the NordCon [linked content is in German], which is the largest gaming-convention around here. In this post I'll just tell you what I did and how much fun it was. No pictures though, as I was too busy having fun to get out my cell to document things. Except when I was a little drunk on mead and watching that ultra-hot fire-spitting/belly-dancing thing at night but that was because I was in third row and could only see things through holding up my phone... Anyway, let's get to the con-recap. This post might bore you, just as a forewarning.

So, first time at the NordCon as a paying customer. In recent years I have had my own stand, offering games of BrikWars with armies of Lego that I had built and provided for the convention-goers amusement. That went over quite well after I had made some posters denouncing the Warhammer-crowd in their own smelly gymn, going something like "tabletop-gaming too expensive and uncreative for you? Come play BrikWars with us!", games filled up nicely. The other times I have been at the NordCon I helped with preparations and clean-up, thus earning me the rank of a  helper and not paying entrance fees. Never got a T-shirt though, thus I was kind of disgruntled and decided that I'd not help this year (the fact that I was at that wedding in Swizerland the weekend before and got the dates somewhat mixed-up is the stronger reason but I like to play the grouchy ex-helper) and instead fully enjoy the convention as a regular goer.

Playing Oblivion: Day 3 part 7 – Unexpected Interlude

This is part of an ongoing series. If you want to start at the beginning, go here.

It's early 2012 and I'm playing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Why? Because I (finally) can. Join me on my path to glory and the stabilization of the status quo in almost-Tolkien-land. 

Fast-travel surprisingly only takes two in-game hours from Redwater Slough to the house of Melisande the witch. I go inside and give her the ingredients for the cure vampirism-potion. She is delighted that I made it and especially impressed with me killing Hindaril, which is weird as I have fought more formidable foes before and I am, after all, only level 7. There must be much tougher guys out there. But then again the game apparently scales enemies to my abilities, which is nice as I can pretty much go anywhere and not instantly die, but it does strain my suspension of disbelief to hear that something Martor has killed at this stage was so impossible to kill. The other problem with the scaling is that it doesn't really matter if I level up, as things seemingly level up with me. Yes, I get more points in, say, strength but it still takes as many hits to kill enemies.

Be that however it may be, the witch says she'll need 24 hours to brew the cure. That means I have to wait out this night and hide another day. I decide to go to one of the towns and try to get lodging. I figure I'll need a rather run-down tavern to actually do business with me so I decide to go to the most run-down part of the Capital, which is the port-area. I'll see if I can get a room in that former ship that is now a tavern. So I fast-travel there.

Pen & Paper: Creating a World part 5 - Recent History

In part 5 of my little world-creation we'll take a look at the recent history of the setting. Recent history is important as it is what makes a world seem alive and seperates it from a static setting. Things have happened in recent history and they play a part in what people think of the place they live in and may even create reference points for snide remarks, prejudice or even popular culture in-game. Let's take a look...

Okay let's talk about recent events that have shaped the world that my players are currently experiencing (and interacting with in ways that may result in mid-scale changes temselves). Now as I am making this up as the game progresses, the history directly influencing the lives of my player characters is what I have fleshed out thus far. This limits the recent history of the world to the eastern hemisphere, as out of the seven PCs six are from the Western Empire and one is from the Kalifate. The latter, being the siltent foreigner of the group, does sometimes wonder about the way things are handled in the Western Empire but is okay with the group running around in the wilderness, doing savage things as she is an animal-trainer in search of rare and (from her view) exotic animals to capture and tame.

Look what I built!

Two of my friends are getting married this weekend and, being the best man (to the bride, actually), I had to come up with something clever for a gift. Went to cubeecraft and, with the help of my lovely girlfriend, built this nice little mario-themed diorama. As bride and groom have sent out their save-the-date in pixelart too, I thought it would only be fitting. Financial aid for the wedding (in the form of coins, of course) goes into the ?-Blocks. This was quite a lot of work as I have printed out everything in 300 dpi, rendering every block rather small (1" per side), making them quite a bit of precision-work to cut out and put together. Also, I really should have made the floor from one piece - but I didn't, it's eight individual cubes... Not the smartest route, I tell you.

Playing Oblivion: Day 3 part 6 – Vampire Hunt

This is part of an ongoing series. If you want to start at the beginning, go here.

It's early 2012 and I'm playing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Why? Because I (finally) can. Join me on my path to glory and the stabilization of the status quo in almost-Tolkien-land. 

I hang out in the entrance of the fort/underground dungeon. Looking at the deeper parts of the place, I spot a heavily armed man, a woman with a bow and a large dog. I don't feel like murdering what , in this childless world, seems to be the closest thing to a little family of outlaws I've yet to see. Martor isn't here for a fight so I sneak into other tunnels around. Killing a couple of rats, I spend most of the day just sneaking around. Then it's night again, I can get out and get to the last bit of this quest.

The place where the quest has marked the Redwater Slough on my map, where that mighty vampire whose ashes I need is supposed to dwell, is further south than I have ever traveled. I fast-travel to the shrine where I drew blood from that Argonian, then I move onwards on horseback, seeking that cave. It does take a while to ride there so I have already given up the fantasy of returning to Melisande during this night. Finding the cave, I check my equipment. I have my steel claymore, in a decent state of sharpness. I have my katana but lacking it's best buddy, the leather shield, the weapon is of limited use to me, especially as it is rather used by this point. I have the magic mace I bought in case I have to fight ghosts again. As it does deal extra fire-damage, I consider it a possible weapon for my fight with Hindaril and assign it to a quick-draw-slot. I also ready the bow with steel arrows. Maybe I'll get a sneak-attack on someone. I enter the vampire-lair, claymore in hand.

Music in Gaming

Let's talk about music and gaming, shall we? Music is one of two very direct ways to convey emotions, set a tone and get a mood into a room full of people. Simply watching the same movie-scene twice with different mood-setting ambient music can be a jarringly different experience. So what about gaming? In this post I'll talk about the musical scoring of video games and then give you my thoughts on whether or not this can be conveyed to a pen and paper RPG-session with your friends.

Music in video games is almost as old as the medium itself, starting with bleeps and bloops, then at some point turning into nice MIDI tunes and then going to full on audio-soundtracks. The big difference between making a soundtrack for a video game work as intended in comparison with a movie (which is, let's face it, where a lot of video-gaming has its audiovisual language from), is as with so many things, player agency. If you're not making just an interactive movie with quicktime-events (don't even get me started! F*** you, Fahrenheit!), you need to either tie in the music with cutscenes, make it generalistic (to fit the overall mood of the game without going into the moment too much), or have the game intelligently react to what's happening on-screen and change the score accordingly. Early games had music of the generalistic sort, as cutscenes were as-of-yet unknown. Later games, like the golden-age adventure games featured music mostly in cutscenes, having learned from earlier game-generations that a constant loop of MIDI-music can get rather annoying. You could get away with it in some action-games, as the soundtrack would change with levels but in an adventure, where the player might be stuck in the same situation for hours or even days, having constantly blaring music was out of the question. Then came games that recognized situations on-screen and adapted the playlist accordingly. Still, most games have had and still have bland, non-recognizable soundtracks. Which ones stood out well enough so that I DO remember them, melody-wise?

Recommendations: April 2012

Recommendations April 2012

A bit delayed as I'm still coping with a death in my closest family, these are some recommendations for your enjoyment in the usual three categories. If any sound like something you'd enjoy, give them a try, you won't regret it!


Podcast of the month: The Rock Paper Shotcast
The makers of the PC-gaming site rockpapershotgun have recently started doing a somewhat irregular podcast (which they claim to be weekly). Topics include news about the video-games industry, general banter and interesting thoughts on concepts within games in a rather informal format that, although sometimes lacking in structure, is very entertaining to listen to.

Blog of the month: The Dungeon Dozen
One of the most entertaining RPG-related things out there, the Dungeon Dozen features (almost) daily random-roll-charts based on a twelve-sided die that give you anything from character-backgrounds to cultural quirks in the mole-people society to loot you find in the arch-wizards chest. As the maker describes it, this blog provides high-flavor and low detail inspirational ideas for role-players or anyone interested in fantasy looking for a chuckle. Be it creating entire worlds in your mind or just laughing with it at the clichés pertained in the hobbys lore, this is an absolute must-read.

Free game of the month: Prospector
As you may have noticed, I like me some good roguelikes with a huge open world to explore and some punishing dangers to kill me permadead. Prospector combines these with space exploration aboard a ship and on planetary surfaces with a nice degree of complexity while remaining rather accessible (for a roguelike). Go forth and explore a planetary sector, make money working for the (somewhat evil) corporations, do your own thing, become a pirate, do whatever you like. There is even a large-scale story to uncover but I have never survived for long enough to find out more than "there are killer robots on some planets. My weapons are useless against them."...

A short notice

This blog is on hiatus for a couple of days as I am currently dealing with the loss of a very close family member. Check back in a few.

-Marten

Playing Oblivion: Day 3 part 5 – Garlic Run

This is part of an ongoing series. If you want to start at the beginning, go here.

It's early 2012 and I'm playing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Why? Because I (finally) can. Join me on my path to glory and the stabilization of the status quo in almost-Tolkien-land. 

As I leave Skingrad, I spot something burning ahead of me by the roadside. I take my time and check out the plants by the roadside, none of them being nightshade. When I come closer, my greatest fears come true: The burning is actually a portal to hell. Another Oblivion-gate has opened, right here in front of the city of Skingrad. As I get closer, which I must as it is right by the road, the sky turns red and, to someone with Martors disease, alarmingly bright. I decide to ignore the gate for now and move on, when I suddenly find myself surrounded by three goblins attacking from all sides. Martor fights off the ambush with an alarming lack of efficiency, his shield breaking in the process. Once more, I have neglected weapon-repair and now I pay the price. Badly injured, I manage to fend off the creatures and then see, that it wasn't an ambush but me, distracted by the hellgate, having stumbled into their campsite.

Pen & Paper: Creating a World part 4 - Spirituality

My world-building series continues, this time we'll talk a bit about the spiritual world-order that the fantasy-setting I'm creating for my bi-weekly gaming group is like. Religions, spirits and ghosts are present and active in the world - what is that going to be like? Let's explore! (by the way, I am aware that I said I'd go for the recent world-history this time, that'll be up next - promise!)



So, this is a fantasy world. By now we have given it a geography with some basic notions of empires/cultures, as well as some non-human sentient species roaming about, doing non-human sentient things. As I have also started playing with my players, I can now start letting their ideas and thoughts influence the further details of the world they're in. One should always listen to the players, they take over a lot of your work as a GM if you play your cards right...


So, spirituality is this posts topic. For this to be a fantasy-world, there needs to be a supernatural element. This is something I find hard to balance, as too much magic tends to replace technology in any given setting and I usually don't like these settings. Say, "there are no airplanes but we can summon flying horses at will, there are no cellphones but we have speaking-stones, there are no robots but we have golems for everything - but everyone still fights with sword and bow..." - you already lost me there. You can use magic to replace technology, but that results in a sci-fi setting, rather than a fantasy-setting (see Exalted when playing in the first-age - it has the internet and even power-armor). So, nobody in my setting is going to throw fireballs or simply raise the dead when need be. Magic is primeval, mysterious, rare and scary. Supernatural creatures are even more so.

Playing Oblivion: Day 3 part 4 – Another Approach

This is part of an ongoing series. If you want to start at the beginning, go here.

It's early 2012 and I'm playing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Why? Because I (finally) can. Join me on my path to glory and the stabilization of the status quo in almost-Tolkien-land. 

This time, I wait out the day in the Squandered Mine. For what I am planning, I need it to be dark when I get to the witch house, as I will leave it soon after arriving. I need to steal that soul-gem without angering the witch Melisande by invading her privacy. There might be a way and, once again, it involves my vampire-charm ability. Its effect lasts for sixty real-time seconds. That might be enough. I lay out the plan in my head and finally, after the sun has gone down, leave to actually do it.

Minecraft: Permadeath Play - Day 3

After my favorite Minecraft play-blog has finished its epic story of a nomad and his eternal voyage (which wasn't eternal after all), I have decided to fill the void left by that glorious adventure by starting my own little project with Minecraft: Minecraft: Permadeath play. By now the game even offers the option of Hardcore Mode, which deletes your save-file and the entire world in case you should die. That is something I can get behind. I started to play and will post day by day here every once-in-a-while. The goal is not only survival, as that would lead to me building a fortified farm and then nothing else happening ever again. Instead, I have set myself some goals that I shall pursue one at a time. The first one is to get a map of my surrounding area, exploring it to its entirety. Let's get started, shall we?

I get out of the cave early, fighting off a zombie, and get to work. The house is going to be made out of wooden planks on a cobblestone-foundation. I start placing wood on the foundation, every once going off my peninsula to check the view on the building.

Pen and Paper Play: How to Host a Dungeon

A short interruption to my World-Creating series, this post is going to be a bit different, whilst being more of my usual fare: A let's play post of the aforementioned How To Host A Dungeon. I have just found my notes from my very first playthrough of it on my old laptop and thought I'd translate and share them with you. Sadly, I am missing the actual dungeon map but, as I am horrible at drawing, it's not to much of a loss. I've set it all up so it is the history of a dungeon before a player-group enters it. Enjoy!


Once the land lay barren and empty, beneath the earth a long vein of gold, a subterranean river connected to a subterranean lake as well as a sinkhole on the surface, and a deep set cave where Gargarax, a wyrm from the old age slumbered for millennia. Then came the dwarves.


Hagrards Bunch, a dwarven tribe built their mines into the ground, working the gold vein and ever expanding their cavernous mines. Their population was thriving and prospering, their civilization blossoming. They created great architectonic feats under ground, such as the Great Hall of Yaldrick the Dwarven King, which his son expanded and his grandson added a great library to. At the height of their civilization, Hagrards Bunch carved the Great Dwarven City of Yaladrakkia from the base rock and despite having to pay tributes to the great wyrm Gargarax, they were still rich enough that, according to legend, the great Treasure Hall of Yaladrakkia, which has never been found, was splendid and filled with riches beyond ken. But the dwarves dug to deep and to greedily...

Pen & Paper: Creating a World part 3 - Geography

In this sub-series I will work out a setting for a game of (low-) fantasy pen and paper role-playing that I'm running as a GM right now. The series is inspired by this  and the interpretation/variety of it by one of my friends, although it will be substantially different from both. Find the introduction over here. This time around I will introduce the world geography, including a map that a friend of mine drew free-handed.


When it came to the geography of The World, I had ideas for some of the political entities and mysterious locations that are to be found in it but no real idea on how they are placed and what the overall map of the world would look like. I asked the aforementioned friend to draw me a world-map that is not of our own world and she went at it and drew some continents and islands on a piece of graphing-paper. She gave it to me and what I had to do next was to fill in the white of the map, make it a habited world. So the basic first version of it looked like this:

Playing Oblivion: Day 3 part 3 – Making Mistakes

This is part of an ongoing series. If you want to start at the beginning, go here.

It's early 2012 and I'm playing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Why? Because I (finally) can. Join me on my path to glory and the stabilization of the status quo in almost-Tolkien-land. 

I decide to make a run for it, dropping a Save before leaving the mine to run to the witches house. On the first three attempts the combination of flailing down a mountain-slope and being burned by the sun kill me. On the fourth try, I make it to the house and inside. Melisande the witch asks me about the stones and I can only tell her that I don't have five yet. As I know that there is one in her basement, I move past her and down the somewhat hidden hatch.

Minecraft: Permadeath Play - Day 2

After my favorite Minecraft play-blog has finished its epic story of a nomad and his eternal voyage (which wasn't eternal after all), I have decided to fill the void left by that glorious adventure by starting my own little project with Minecraft: Minecraft: Permadeath play. By now the game even offers the option of Hardcore Mode, which deletes your save-file and the entire world in case you should die. That is something I can get behind. I started to play and will post day by day here every once-in-a-while. The goal is not only survival, as that would lead to me building a fortified farm and then nothing else happening ever again. Instead, I have set myself some goals that I shall pursue one at a time. The first one is to get a map of my surrounding area, exploring it to its entirety. Let's get started, shall we?

Hearing zombies above and fearing sudden death by creeper, I ran out of my cave, the sword I had crafted over night in hand. I had used the iron that the cave held to craft a sword, as I don't want to get killed by some random mob, and a set of shears as I intend to build myself a bed as soon as possible - being outside at night is way to dangerous when you're on permadeath. I get out of my cave and manage to slay a zombie that had been camping out above my entrance. Then I went hunting.

Pen & Paper: Creating a World part 2 - Fantastical Races

In this sub-series I will work out a setting for a game of (low-) fantasy pen and paper role-playing that I'm running as a GM right now. The series is inspired by this and the interpretation/variety of it by one of my friends, although it will be substantially different from both. I have introduced the whole thing over here and in this post I will tell you about the different fantastical sentient creatures that inhabit The World.


There are several different sentient races besides humans inhabiting The World. As I mentioned previously, they differ enough from humans to be a problem whenever they find themselves in human settlements so they live either on the fringe of the human empires or have their own empires. Let's introduce some of them.

Playing Oblivion: Day 3 part 2 – Dungeoneering with a Purpose

This is part of an ongoing series. If you want to start at the beginning, go here.

It's early 2012 and I'm playing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Why? Because I (finally) can. Join me on my path to glory and the stabilization of the status quo in almost-Tolkien-land. 

Nornal is one of these ancient ruins littering the landscape, built by some advanced ancients right on top of a hilltop. It's also defended by marauders, which are as much as I can gather, some type of elite bandits. There are two of them outside, attacking Martor with bow and arrow and quickly falling prey to his blade. Entering the ruins, it is noticeable that the place is half-flooded, despite being situated on a hilltop. There are some more marauders present but they are no match for Martor, not now that his vampiric powers seem to be growing every day.

Pen & Paper: Creating a World part 1 - The Basic Setup

In this sub-series I will work out a setting for a game of (low-) fantasy pen and paper role-playing that I'm running as a GM right now. The series is inspired by this and the interpretation/variety of it by one of my friends, although it will be substantially different from both. Over the course of this series I will cover the cultures and races that populate my fantasy world, as well as the geography and mystical aspects including religion, gods and magic. This first post will only feature a brief introduction and overview of it all.


First of all it is important to mention that the world we're going to play in has no name (or many of them). For its inhabitants, who are on a level of technology variing from stone-age-like over the European middle-ages up to early medieval Persia and China, it is the world and as they are unaware of other physical planes besides the possibility of other planets being discussed by some elite philosophers, it is simply The World. None of the cultures living there has actually fully explored the planet, thus the world-map I will introduce later is something hypothetical to the inhabitants of the place, a GM-tool rather than a possible in-game artifact.

Minecraft: Permadeath Play - Day 1

After my favorite Minecraft play-blog has finished its epic story of a nomad and his eternal voyage (which wasn't eternal after all), I have decided to fill the void left by that glorious adventure by starting my own little project with Minecraft: Minecraft: Permadeath play. By now the game even offers the option of Hardcore Mode, which deletes your save-file and the entire world in case you should die. That is something I can get behind. I started to play and will post day by day here every once-in-a-while. The goal is not only survival, as that would lead to me building a fortified farm and then nothing else happening ever again. Instead, I have set myself some goals that I shall pursue one at a time. The first one is to get a map of my surrounding area, exploring it to its entirety. Let's get started, shall we?

I spawn in a snow-covered forrest and immedeatly feel the dread and pressure that I have set upon myself. If I die, this is it. And there is no safe place in the world as of yet. The first day in Minecraft is always something filled with time-pressure, as you scramble to get tools and building-materials to get a shelter for the night going. I also need to find a suitable place to settle down at so, after chopping down some trees to get the wood I will need for my first set of tools, I set out to find a less snow-covered area. I have always liked to start with natural caves or similar, as that would also be a source of coal and stone but the area around me is just snow-covered conifers as far as I can see...

Things to come 4

This blog has been going for three months now and I think I have found my rhythm in posting. That said, this month will probably see the following:

-Pen and paper thoughts. As I had said last month, this time I will actually get around to doing some world-building. We'll see if I do actually do it...

-Again, continuing the Oblivion diary. I have enough material for another two months and I don't think I'm even half-way through the main questline...

-I might go on about some more board-game experiences. Just in theory.

-Several possible Thoughts on Pixels are in the making. I have to organize my thoughts on these though.

-I intend to translate my forum-optimized tactical dungeon-crawl RPG MadSlay Online into English. If it gets done within this month, I'll release it here.

So yeah, I've managed to post more posts in March than I did in February and I'll try to keep up the pace with about three posts per week on average. See how it goes in the near future on this very blog!

Recommendations: March 2012

Recommendations March 2012

In this category of posts I will highlight three links I find worthwhile and tell you, the readers, why that is so. In every post like this I will link to one podcast, one other blog, and one free game, be it video-, table-top, RP-, or other. I'll try to keep this as regular category at the end of the month/beginning of the next month, hence the “of the month” attached to each category. Take that however you will. All things presented here are things I listen to/read/play on a regular basis and that is my only certificate of quality I'm offering here.

Podcast of the month: Actual People, Actual Play
This is yet another podcast on the topic of role-playing games, albeit a bit more on the theoretical and intellectual side of things. The crew basically reviews game-sessions they have played on a variety of different gaming-systems, ranging from traditional RPGs to more experimental ones lacking Gamemasters and such things. They put a lot of thought into game-mechanics and how they affect gameplay and the overall experience and, as they put it in the beginning of each episode, "the fiction during play". Anyone who is a GM or likes to design their own games will find this well worth listening to so check it out!

Blog of the month: Greywulfs Lair
This man, original inspirateur for my own Sudongeon has a blog that is a mixture between art-blog (he does 3D-designs, mostly of fantasy-characters) and musings on classic and more recent Dungeons and Dragons. As the man has quite the background in the latter, his texts are always worth a read, even if you don't play actual D 'n D, for his ideas for campaign-settings and rule-deviations are inspiring for any kind of game, really.

Free game of the month: How to Host a Dungeon
How to Host a Dungeon is a procedural world-generation tool that you play not with your computer, but with pen and paper and some dice. Watch in awe as a dungeon is created from the formation of caves, the intrusion of dwarves and dark elves and their eventual demise through cultural enthropy or invading monsters. This creates a dungeon that has a history of centuries, allowing a GM to fleshen out descriptions nearly endlessly, or is just a fun exercise in itself. There is a free version as well as a paid version with additional illustrations and features.

Playing Oblivion: Day 3 part 1 – Daywalking

This is part of an ongoing series. If you want to start at the beginning, go here.

It's early 2012 and I'm playing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Why? Because I (finally) can. Join me on my path to glory and the stabilization of the status quo in almost-Tolkien-land.

It's night in the Imperial Capital. A figure wanders through the streets, from shadow to shadow but without any real aim. It's Martor, the hero, the traveler, the unwilling vampire. The thirst must be killing him by now but his quest has only just begun. At some point, I realize, I must wait until the day. I have come to the capital because I have heard that one can buy a soul gem here. In fact, I know so, because after all I have read the online wiki about how to complete this vampire-cure quest. It turns out that without reading that, I wouldn't have stood a chance. It's hard enough as it is: Martor burns up quickly upon contact with sunlight, which I could help with by drinking someones blood. But Martor has sworn never to do such a thing.

Game Spotlight: Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator

Last night, a few of my roleplaying-buddies and I got together to play a hybrid of video-game, life-action RPG, and social game called Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator. And it was awesome. Never before have I felt so involved in a multi-player experience and never before was a LAN-party this much fun. Here's how it went...

Artemis is a game designed to be played by a group of people in the same room. Everyone (except the captain) needs a computer as their work-station on this totally-not-Startrek-at-all space voyage. Every player plays a distinct role on the command bridge and they will only see what their role requires them to see on their screen. There is a main screen that can show different aspects including informations from each individual station as well as outside-views of the ship. This leads to a gaming experience where each player does their job on board while the captain runs around and tells everyone what to do, requests status-reports or this/that to be put up on the main screen.

Playing Oblivion Day 2 part 6: Looking for a Cure

This is part of an ongoing series. If you want to start at the beginning, go here.

It's early 2012 and I'm playing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Why? Because I (finally) can. Join me on my path to glory and the stabilization of the status quo in almost-Tolkien-land.

It takes me a while to find the entrance to the castle in Skingrad, accidentally ending in the guard-quarters at one point. The count’s secretary tells me to wait and I pace around the grand entrance hall of the incredibly gothic-looking castle thinking about what to do when the guy shows up. Is he going to fess-up and I’ll have to kill him? With all of these guards around? Will he have a cure and I can just go, being back to normal human Nord again? Making himself seem very important, the count lets me wait for a while. When he finally shows up I get to watch him slowly walking across a balcony and then coming down the stairs. When he deems it fit to speak to me, my hopes of a quick-heal is quickly shattered.

Pen and Paper: Casualties among PCs part 3 - Left in the Ditch and other Deaths

Still talking about characters who died on me, this time we'll look at the other three deaths in my roster. My first character death was something I actually enjoyed, from a story-perspective (going out in a blaze, saving the world and killing a lot of evil authority figures in the process) as well as from a meta-gaming perspective (screwing up the deus-ex-machina players-not-involved ending the GM had prepared). The second one much less so.