Cartoons have changed a lot since i was a kid

When I was a kid, I watched a lot of cartoons. Transformers, GI Joe, He-Man & She-Ra, Thundercats. Those were my favorties.

They were adventure stories, full of cringe-worthy campy comedy, lots of explosions, powers, fast moving action, and no death. None. And if there was a death, it was impactful. Like, we all felt it. In fact, the only one I can actually think of is Optimus, during the Transformers: The Movie, and that was heart wrenching. 

Death never happened to the NPCs, like cobra soldiers in GI Joe. In fact, the Joes were decidedly terrible shots until the invention of B.A.T. soldiers, but they were robots, so it was okay. Like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, when the Foot soldiers were robots, so it was okay for the turtles to destroy them. 

Today cartoons are much different. On advice from a friend, I began to watch Disney's Star Wars: Rebels. It is very different. People die all the time. Well, let me correct: Storm Troopers die all the time. All. The. Time.

I was very surprised. Cobra and Joe soldiers were amazingly adept at ejecting or leaping from their vehicles at the last possible second before their vehicle exploded, and that put them out of the fight. They apparently didn't carry side arms. The war was attrition of motorcade.

So far I've seen 3 episodes of Rebels, and there's probably 20+ Storm Troopers that die in each one.

Just an observation.

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The dangers of Politics

I have never been interested in politics. For a time when Obama was running for president Sage and I did our due diligence and studied up. We were most interested in Ron Paul, but he was basically laughed off the stage at the debates, so we voted Obama because he was charismatic and promised change. I have no idea if there was really change, but I didn't believe all the hype that the other side threw at him. Whatever. I was away for his term. Presidents don't mean much in prison.

Star Wars has always been big in my life. I love the movies, the books, and my favorite RPG is Star Wars Saga Edition by WOTC. I know it's scattered all over all the books, but that's why I condensed the feats, talents, and races into their individual books. A project of love for the game I enjoy most.

What does SW have to do with politics, you may ask?

Three words: The Last Jedi.

I'm sure you've heard the debate. Fans didn't like it so they spoke up, said, "Hey, Rey is a Mary Sue. She has no growth, you set her up as unbeatable with absolutely no training." "Hey, Why did you make Finn into a joke?" "Why the hell would you make a huge change like the weaponization of hyperspace??!! That changes everything!! What the hell are you doing??!!", and in response directors called us names like misogynists, manbabies, racists, and dismissed the criticism; media attacked the fans, calling us toxic white males and saying we are racist woman haters, and it's too bad that the reality didn't live up to the story in our heads.

Still don't see the politics? Neither did I. I was mad enough about the way LucasFilm was treating us. And then I watched Alex Becker's video on SJW politics in Star Wars and I had no idea what an SJW was. I had to look it up. And then I had to follow the trail down the rabbit hole to learn more.

Have you ever watched the movie or read the book Flowers for Algernon? SPOILER ALERT: Charlie is mentally challenged and becomes the test subject for some scientists working on brain enhancements. (See also: Lawnmower Man.) Charlie gets smarter, but then he gets so smart he starts to recognize his own superiority to the scientists. He gets resentful. He gets angry. Then the drugs start to wear out and he goes back to being hapless, innocent ol' Charlie again.

I wish I could go back to my ignorance. My research has made it clear that I am pretty conservative in many things, and that has set me at odds at some points with my wife, who is a self proclaimed feminist and part time social justice warrior herself, though not to the degree as some of the leftists I see online. We had to have a serious sit down discussion to sort through our views and make sure they were still in line for the raising of our children. That was a tough couple days.

And finally, to wrap it all up, my knowledge of SJW politics still does not always come to mind when I post things online. On my twitter feed I posted this:

And you can see at the bottom that it got one retweet. Fantastic! I only have 8 followers, and this guy has 460 something. So maybe someone would click the pic, like it, and buy the shirt. It'd be free advertising. I followed them to give my support.

But then over the last couple days I started paying attention to what this person was posting, and I realized I made a mistake thinking this was a good thing. I mean, I was wondering why they didn't like the post if they retweeted it, and I noticed that no one had gone to my store. That's when I started to pay attention to the stuff they were posting and retweeting. OMH! This person didn't like my post... they hated my post. They are vegan animal activists and I just posted a pic of a crazy naked dude pouring the blood of a squirrel into a bowl to use in a sacrificial magic ritual.

And that's when it hit me, politics is everywhere.

So, buy my shirt if you like it, don't if you don't.
If you buy it from here I'll even give you free shipping.
Use promo code: BlitzHobbyFS at checkout.

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Sage's moment of Triumph

I set up an encounter to push my heroes a little. Have them think it over. Make them work for victory. They're 5th level now, and I wanted to kinda worry them.

I had an ambient youth run up and had a datapad to my wife's hero, a small flying assassin droid named T1-NK, and tell her that he was paid to deliver the message.

The datapad told her that someone knew why they were there and wanted the heroes to meet him on such and such landing pad at 0200 (yes, its mostly a twist out of DoD e3. i was rewriting it and keeping some of the elements to assist in flow).

So the party decides that they will scout the landing pad out early and just send in the assassin droid, not all of them. The kel-dor scout goes in 2 hrs early to an empty landing pad and passes thru the atmosphere shield, locking his magnetic boots to the outside to watch.

Time goes by.

A well dressed man in a uniform enters and stands on the landing pad, gazing out at the glow of the planet before him.

Tee-One enters a few minutes later, alone.

The man hears the doors and turns, smug, but is slightly startled when he realizes the droid is alone. He was expecting more. "Well, no matter," he says, "We'll catch up with your companions later. Now. Drop your weapons and... float down to the deck." At which time ten heavy stormtroopers enter behind her and line up pointing their blasters at her back.

Tee-One drops her blaster. A small panel on her back opens and from a spring loaded launcher flies a thermal detonator, landing right center of the group of storm troopers. One bloody mist cloud later, the storm troopers have been decimated and the commander stands stupidly slack jawed.

Tee-One, without missing a beat, "You had some information for me?"

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House Rules

This could also be subtitled as, "Big name publisher made hundreds of rules to control your little imaginative world, but you thought of stuff they didnt think of and made even more".

I read on a forum recently that it is a good idea to write down your house rules so they are not forgotten, misunderstood, or at least so there is a reference of them so the players don't think you're just making stuff up arbitrarily.

So, here's my top rules that follow me pretty much any d20 (or similar) system I play:

1. Character Creation - When rolling ability scores, roll 4d6, dropping the lowest die, re-rolling all 1's. If you roll a set and you aren't happy with them, you can roll again, up to four times, but you can't go back to any previous set you've rolled. You have to use one of those five sets.
   Typically, this gives us heroic characters. Like... very heroic characters. If we compare our current Star Wars character's ability scores to the point buy system (which recommends 24-28 points), my party characters range more around 48-54. Are they overballanced? Maybe. But c'mon.. They're heroes. And no one likes to have an 8.
   
2. Encumberance - This is kind of a tough one. I view it more like the video game equipment. You are not encumbered by things that you won't be using. Such as the seven suits of storm trooper armor that you plan on selling in the next shadowport. But all your gear that you wear and use on a regular basis should be accounted for.
3. Ammo - You have enough ammo for just about any situation, unless you roll a 1 on your attack. (because rolling a 1 on attack is so confusing about what should happen, I like this rule. No worrying about if it blows up or shoots your buddy instead.) If you roll a 1 on the attack, roll 1d4. On a 1, you are out of ammo. Looks like you should have remembered to recharge that e-clip, or the e-clip failed. I might expand this to make 2-4 do other stuff on fails, but for now, I'm happy with that.
4. Party bag of holding - I did this one to help with my wife's need to loot abso-freaking-lutely every baddie they kill. She sells the majority for 50%, keeps all grenades and explosives in this party bag that anyone can grab from. It's just for little stuff like grenades, that can be easily shared, without having to worry about who had them. I guess I can see the challenges that can be part of: "I throw the thermal detonator at the four clones and the badass bodyguard coming to capture me." "Nope, Sorry. Elzebub has them and she's on the other side of the station, " But i'm more of the mind that worrying about inventory takes away from the fun part. So, yeah. bag o' grenades ftw!
5. Shooting into Melee - If you miss the shot by more than 5, random roll to decide who it hits. Damage is base weapon damage only, no bonuses of any kind. (level, sneak attack, etc) If you miss by more than 10 or less than 5, complete miss.
   

What are some of your house rules and where did they get their start?

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Game Theory - The Total Rewrite

This phrase really freaked me out when I first heard it. What could be cooler than a theory of games? But you know what? It isn't the cool new college course that all the design publishers are looking for, its actually military strategy. Which kinda works, if you're playing Total Annihilation. But I'm not talking about military strategem, or TA. I'm talking about design.

My first major campaign for Star Wars Saga Edition is going on. We are up to the third episode, and since I didn't care for the original RPGA written episode 3, I'm rewriting it.

Now, I've got to tell you, this is not just an easy throw something together thing. There is real thought and planning behind building an episode for an existing established campaign. I wanted to keep some of the same elements in the game so that key things that took place in the original will still happen in the rewrite, but will fit my new setting and events.

But it doesn't work to just cut and paste areas of the text, because they are very different in content.

For example, I just couldn't bring myself to put my very aggressive players thru four days of playing cards. It just wouldn't have worked. They would have been killing random npcs by the second day. So that had to go. But there is a purchase / exchange that happens during the card game. Now I have to have that purchase / exchange go down anyway, but in a diffent manner, and to where the players discover it anyway, and make it more interesting than hiding in shadows evesdropping or sitting somewhere high up and watching thru macrobinoculars.

So. For the first installment of my new RPG focused hobby blog, here we have:

Episode 3. Rewriting the Adventure.

1. Keep the NPCs the same, just change their role. Rather than your Rodian being a scoundrel card sharp, throw him in position of the Noble. Dress him up in fancy clothes and give him an entourage.


2. Keep the setting similar, just change the location. The original may take place on Jabba's Sail Barge over the dune sea. But that doesn't fit your new setting, since you aren't including Jabba, or the Tatoonian Dune Sea. How about a five day-six night stay aboard the luxury star cruise Correlian Star Resorts Cruise & Travel.


3. Keep the main plot of the episode, just change the detail. The original was a rescue of the princess from the evil Empire's new space station detention facility before she's executed. Well, perhaps in your game, the Empire's base is an underground facility, and the rescue of the princess is freeing slaves. Plot: Rescue. Details: location / rescuee.


4. Add in new stuff that makes your game different, but similar. Basically not all the encounters from the original episode are going to work in your new location/setting/goal. But coming up with interesting encounters can be a challenge. You don't want your episode rewrite to be the same. you want to give it your own flare and creativity. Let's say in the original the heroes were going to come across a datapad that would lead them to an NPC that knew what they were looking for. Well, that's a data encounter. How about instead, your hero's droid slices into the central station computer and that data that was going to be provided from the NPC is available there.


5. Make it exciting. No matter how much you didn't like the original write, something about it made it exciting to the writers. Try to capture that element. It's okay to borrow from their example to do it. Just as the heroes save the princess and disable the tractor beam, escape from the big bad evil super villain (BBESV), they blast off into space only to discover their hyperdrive has been disabled. Dun dun DUN! Now they have to fight off waves of TIE fighters and fix the hyperdrive at the same time before the shields give out!

Yeah, keep that part.

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The Community

My wife has a blogger community. I've had my blog for about a year now. She's had hers for a couple months. She has a community and is getting comments and reads from other bloggers. What do i get? Random comments posted from random people, and once in a great while. I haven't been totally happy with that, but I didnt know where to go. What am I supposed to do to get a community? my friends don't read my blog. I can barely get them to show up to games (which isn't totally fair, because Sinister had a real emergency this week).

Well, I need a community. But my blog may need a target direction before I have readers. It may also need planned regular updates and themes. so far it is a collection of random thoughts and posts about my totally random activity of the day. Is that a direction? Is that a theme? Randomness in hobbying? I want a gamer community. Ah, well.

Forums, on the other hand, are a community that is easier to be a part of. I've been spending a lot of time on d20Radio in the star wars saga edition forums. I try to find things that I can throw in on from my experiences to assist those who have questions, even though I'm no master GM. I have been more on the pc side than gm side, but when our previous gm moved to Kansas, I stepped up to pick up the pieces as the next most experienced player (about 20 years).

I've had some good GM's in my time. Jake was our Shadowrun storyteller. He kept us interested and involved, and I've strived to provide some of the magic that came out of those games in my current group. Volgren was another. He had great adventure ideas and always kept us interested, and were always full of depth and sometimes the scale and scope was so far reaching that I'm amazed we survived at all.

So far my game has been reading from the little orange hilighted boxes, then picking out pieces of the rest of the paragraph to use as details, then setting up the battle map with the miniatures so the players could duke it out with stormtroopers. i have a few of the swminis from Skipphag, but not many. the normal table is a mix of swminis, 40k soldiers, iron kingdom heroes, and the occasional large empty black base to represent big monsters. The maps are cardstock that i had grid squares printed and then i cut out the proper room sizes and have even gone so far as to create little additions, such as a raised dias for the hutt, or a speeder for us to cruise around Cato Niemodia in.

But i want to do more. I want the experience to be even more memorable, so in my over zealous way, I dived full on into google looking for resources, and am tripping over community.

Community.

It says so much, just sitting there like that, begging people to walk in the door. Begging them to sit at the table, pick up a pencil and some dice, and play. Perhaps its my lack of experience as storyteller that is my shortcoming. On the fly isn't coming together fast enough to be coherent. For my wife's solo game that i'm planning, i'm writing down everything. It may sound a little wooden, but she doesn't care, she just wants to know what she gets for loot loves me anyway. But i'm writing down the intro, i'm writing down what she sees, hears, and the little fluff elements. For example, the beginning of the adventure will consist of an immersive description of a daydream that is going on while she is supposed to be practicing controlling her force sensitivity.

You are Jedi. Sworn protector of the Republic. Feared and awed throughout known space. Limitless power, boundless knowledge, vast resources all at your fingertips.

Or, at least they will be in a few years. For now, you are still a padawan learner, following at your master's heels. She is stern and strict, but fair, and you have learned much. You have a few missions under your belt now. You've been off Dantooine a couple times. You helped to neutralize a cunning assassin with a contract on an important senator. You helped bring down a warlord in the outer rim that was raiding isolated settlements for supplies. Neither easy, but definitely worth it for the experience it brought you.

But lately it’s been back to studies. Focusing on lifting stuff, deflecting stuff, moving stuff... it seems to never end. Your dreams of glory and fame have never felt so far away. The only thing that makes these days bearable is Juuna, your best friend from one of the outlying farms. Her presence chases away the doldrums and her mischief brings a touch of excitement to your life. You look forward to after studies when you can meet up and do something other than study. Perhaps today there will be boys involved, though your master wouldn't approve.

You are brought sharply out of your daydreams by a surprised shout, and you look about. Padawan Doona Vlyn is hovering three feet off the ground, flailing wildly. Apparently while running through exercises, as your concentration wavered, so did your target. The stones lay before you haphazardly. Maybe you should do something about Doona.

There. I will read all that to her to immerse her in the story, get her feeling like her character and lead her to the mindset that I view for her character. For a full party I wouldn't be so presumptuous. They may have their own style of play, but this is specifically for Sage.

I hope she likes it.

Wait. I thought I was done, but then I looked at the title. The Community. How does ending on my current star wars game for my wife have anything to do with community? It doesnt, but now I remember where I was going with this.

I think I found them.

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Scum and Villainy

Ok, let's talk about Challenge Levels.

There has been a debate on the d20radio.com Order 66 board about effective challenge level for encounters. It seems very fair that a nonheroic CL1 stormtrooper is -not- a challenge for four heroic level1 characters.

So, keeping that in mind, and because of an unfortunate snowstorm, we were short one player in our game tonite. That's fine, I picked up Scum & Villainy last night and it has a pregen adventure in the back for scoundrels. Well, Sage has been working her heart out on three different characters for our Star Wars campaign for the last several days, and when I brought up a side adventure, she almost cried. No trubbs, I had a Level3 Scoundrel on hand.

I figured Level 3 because there are only 2 of them, so that should make up the difference that 2 more players would have made. OK. So first encounter is against 2 CL3 force sensitive thugs.

o.O That's right. Force Sensitive thugs. Granted, per the rules, this only makes it a CL2 (total enemy CL/3 or 3+3/3=2), and they have an average party level of 3, but because they have only 2 people, we add 2 to the challenge. CL4. A difficult but doable challenge. Well, that depends on the evilness of your GM. Because these thugs wield force lightning and force grip. If I had been evil enough, I could have TPK'd them in a couple rounds. But i'm not evil, so they survived. Challenging, but survival.

Second encounter a little while later (after some healing), three more of these thugs!!?! well, i only pop'd 2 on them, because that would have been just too much. But with the way the setup of the encounter was, they were being choked and shot at, and it wasn't going well, so we stopped.

Now, granted there were only 2 party members, but come on.. this adventure is for 4 level 1 characters, and the first two adventures have them up against 2-3 CL3 heroic enemies. Did anyone playtest this adventure? Should we be using our Second Wind in the first 20 minutes of the game? I don't think so. If I play this adventure again - which i most likely will because the story is pretty good - the party will not be level 1. Mostlikely four level 3 or 4's.

And how is the rest of Scum & Villainy? Oh, pos def worth it. Lots of great stuff in there.

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Star Wars Saga Edition

Ok, so the procrastination post actually came from looking at one of the blogs my wife reads titled procrastination, and i had an epiphany and had to post. but now i'm on to real hobby-ing stuff.

Recently i've been itching to game. Not video games or board games or card games, but paper-and-dice-character-sheet-pencils-and-game-master-friends-around-the-table game. So i've convinced my friends to create level 3 characters to play in our Star Wars game, and i've written the beginning of an adventure that should take us a few days to get into, and then i have a couple campaigns and some plot hooks to take us further. should be pretty interesting.

But the hobby part. The blitz part. the part i get way too into. I went to the WOTC site and i downloaded it. The whole thing. Well,.. pretty much. I have now six additional planets, three space stations, eight new ships, four bad guys to collect bounty on, three adventures, twelve characters, and a four part essay on what it means to be Sith. I've downloaded the core rules book, four sourcebooks, and seven of ten parts of a national campaign. I think i've got a good start for them. Now I just have to make sure i do my part and keep their interest long enough to make use of it.

Collecting e-books is a bit of a hobby of mine as well. At home i have the entire D&D 3.5 system (up to a point, around last... April?), most if not all the Conan books, the entire D20 Modern and Future set, the new D&D 4.0 edition, Iron Kingdoms, World of Warcraft (Yes, as an RPG, not a video game), Traveller20, and a few random ones I've never heard of that I ran across and figured I'd better grab them "just in case". I have them neatly organized in My E-Books folder under RPG/D20/*.* and I've read each of them once or twice. Generally I just bookmark the pdf's for future reference. But I've played almost none of them. The Star Wars ones will be some of the lucky few. Maybe someday I'll find a party that loves to play and will want to make use of them, but for now, my few friends that will show up are proving to be true friends to put up with me and my blitzy ways.

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How to build your own space ship.

This is prolly the shortest hobby i ever had.

It went something like this:

*Me reading this website*

*Sage glancing over at my screen*

Sage says, "Oh, geez."

*End hobby*

I've been sick the last week. stuffy head, miserable nose, wants to run and be stuffed at the same time. I spent the week playing Oblivion (in preparation for Fallout 3's release tomorrow night!!) and feeling awful. Sage was wonderful and took good care of me on my worst day, Tuesday. Then Thursday she started feeling sick, and yesterday and today both were her Tuesday.

When it rains it pours.

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