Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Results of a personality test. I think that all my friends and family would agree...








Smartass
You are 100% Rational, 71% Extroverted, 71% Brutal, and 71% Arrogant.
You are the Smartass! You are rational, extroverted, brutal, and arrogant. You probably consider people who are emotional and gentle to be big pussies who are obviously in lesser stature than you. You have many flaws, despite your seeming intelligence and cool-headedness. For instance, you aren't very nice. In fact, you're probably an asshole. And you are conceited and self-centered. Not only that, but you are very loud and vocal about all this, seeing as how you are extroverted. There is no better way to describe you than as a "smartass", I'm afraid. Perhaps just "ass" would do, too. But that's a little less literary and descriptive. At any rate, your main personality defect is the fact that you are self-centered, mean, uncaring, and brutally logical.


To put it less negatively:

1. You are more RATIONAL than intuitive.

2. You are more EXTROVERTED than introverted.

3. You are more BRUTAL than gentle.

4. You are more ARROGANT than humble.


Compatibility:

Your exact opposite is the Emo Kid.

Other personalities you would probably get along with are the Capitalist Pig, the Braggart, and the Sociopath.

*

*

If you scored near fifty percent for a certain trait (42%-58%), you could very well go either way. For example, someone with 42% Extroversion is slightly leaning towards being an introvert, but is close enough to being an extrovert to be classified that way as well. Below is a list of the other personality types so that you can determine which other possible categories you may fill if you scored near fifty percent for certain traits.

The other personality types:

The Emo Kid: Intuitive, Introverted, Gentle, Humble.

The Starving Artist: Intuitive, Introverted, Gentle, Arrogant.

The Bitch-Slap: Intuitive, Introverted, Brutal, Humble.

The Brute: Intuitive, Introverted, Brutal, Arrogant.

The Hippie: Intuitive, Extroverted, Gentle, Humble.

The Televangelist: Intuitive, Extroverted, Gentle, Arrogant.

The Schoolyard Bully: Intuitive, Extroverted, Brutal, Humble.

The Class Clown: Intuitive, Extroverted, Brutal, Arrogant.

The Robot: Rational, Introverted, Gentle, Humble.

The Haughty Intellectual: Rational, Introverted, Gentle, Arrogant.

The Spiteful Loner: Rational, Introverted, Brutal, Humble.

The Sociopath: Rational, Introverted, Brutal, Arrogant.

The Hand-Raiser: Rational, Extroverted, Gentle, Humble.

The Braggart: Rational, Extroverted, Gentle, Arrogant.

The Capitalist Pig: Rational, Extroverted, Brutal, Humble.

The Smartass: Rational, Extroverted, Brutal, Arrogant.








My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:



















free online datingfree online dating
You scored higher than 92% on Rationality





free online datingfree online dating
You scored higher than 75% on Extroversion





free online datingfree online dating
You scored higher than 82% on Brutality





free online datingfree online dating
You scored higher than 82% on Arrogance
Link: The Personality Defect Test written by saint_gasoline on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

My political party test results

You are a

Social Liberal
(63% permissive)

and an...

Economic Liberal
(23% permissive)

You are best described as a:

Democrat




Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid
Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

Saturday, February 25, 2006

Why is the Death Penalty useless?

I have heard the arguments about how the death penalty doesn't work and how more civilized societies (and states) have abolished it alltogether.

I believe that the Death Penalty would be an effective deterent to crime if it was used efficiently.

Last year here in Denver a man died of old age and natural causes after 28 YEARS on Death Row! How is that supposed to deter someone?

"Let's see... If I can kill enough people then I get free room and board, cable TV, fans, possibly a wife, and some other perks for the rest of my natural life or close to it? Cool! But wait! I ALSO get to drain society of hundreds of thousands of dollars by filing apeal after pointless apeal for no reason other than entertainment? Even better!"

No wonder the Death Penalty is useless.

I believe that the Death Penalty should be revamped. Upgrade the system and make it more effective. Make it more than life in prison without possibility of parole.

If all Death Row appeals were handled by an appeals office devoted to this single cause, and if time limits for filing and processing these appeals were instituted, that would cut down on the process and save YEARS of time.

If a Federal Court of Judges were to be put in place just below the Supreme Court, just to hear and pass judgement on these appeals, thus skipping all the other layers of judges (district, state, etc.) that would also save years.

If appeals could only submitted for reasonable or concrete reasons, that would save even more years.

If this plan was instituted Death Row inmates would be a drain on society for an average of less than three years.

This process can and has been done. Look how fast Timothy McVeigh (sp), the Oklahoma City bomber, got executed.



I know that some of you are worried about cost. Who's gonna pay for all these judges and clerks and stuff?

I propose that we broadcast executions online and on Paid Per View. While this may seem immoral and unethical to you, how many people do you think would have paid $50 to watch McVeigh die? How many friends and members of the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing would have paid to watch him die? What about patriots who wanted to see justice done?

Please bear in mind, you have to PAY in order to watch. No one would be forcing you or anyone else to watch this.

How much money do you think that the government could make on this? If half of the money earned for each execution went to the victims or the family of the victims, this would be more than enough to pay for the legal process to make Death a valid and feared punishment.

What do you think?

Friday, February 24, 2006

What is wrong and how do we decide this?

I visited a debate forum and someone asked the question, "What is wrong?" What is ethically or morally wrong and how do we decide this? Murder is wrong, but why? Without resorting to the Ten Commandments or other religious texts, or saying that it's against the law or society.

This is my response.

The Japanese believe that each person has three faces. The first face is what they show the world. The second face is what they show their friends and family. Only the individula can see their true face.

Morals and ethics operate in a very similar manner.

Everyone is imbued with the morals and ethics of their society (the first face). These societal morals are represented by Laws and enforced by police. Speeding, stealing and such are covered by these. This also includes institutions like work, church, and school.

Friends and family make up our moral and ethical second face. If you grew up with racsist friends or family, you will more than likely be racsist yourself. Peer pressure is a powerful thing, but familial pressure can be greater. If your family and friends are devoted church members, chances are you are too.

Last is yourself. In the end, you make you own decision of what is right and wrong. You are the final judge. This is your True Face.



Morals and ethics change with culture.

Beating and hanging a man because of the color of his skin is accepted in certain parts of the world.

So is ritual suicide.

And having multiple wives.

Who gets to decide what is right and what's wrong?

Why is having more than one wife wrong? How does ritual suicide harm society?

Why is it accepted to have a channel devoted to Black Entertainment on TV but rascist to have a channel devoted to White Entertainment?

Why is a Women Only college permitted but not a Men Only school allowed?

Popular opinion, the views of prominant churches, and the reluctance to change old laws. That's what decides these questions.

I believe that attacking another person because of the color of their skin is wrong. I believe that BET and Women Only schools are racsist and segregation respectively, and that is wrong.

I believe that polygamy and ritual suicide are not wrong. I believe that each of these are the choice of the individuals involved and no one else.

Remember, ethics and morals boil down to the good of the many outweighing the good of the few or the one.

Book Review: Eldest and Knife of Dreams

I have just finished reading two books, Eldest by Christopher Paolini (the second book in his trilogy) and Knife of Dreams by Robert Jordan (book eleven of his Wheel of Time Series). Both of these books were better than their predecessors.

Eldest is the sequel to Eragon and is about a boy who finds a dragon egg and bonds with the dragon when it hatches. Of course, the evil sorcerous king, also a dragon rider, wants the boy and his dragon either killed or converted to his cause.

The main problem that I had with the first book is that everything came too easy for the main character. Take swordplay, for instance. The main character went from never having seen a sword to a swordmaster within a few short months. True, he was trained by a swordmaster, but the training occurred while they were traveling and only lasted for an hour or two each night. And it was in addition to other training, some of it quite hard, such as the study of magic.

All in all, I liked the book and the world that the author had created. Enough so that I bought and read Eldest. That book fixed most of the problems that I had with the first book. The main character tried and failed at almost everything that he did. He made stupid decisions that cost him a good friend and a broken heart. That's a lot better. I'm looking forward to the next (and last) book of this trilogy.




Robert Jordan has been writing the Wheel of Time Series for well over ten years. This is by far the biggest and the most popular fantasy series of all time. I think that the only comparative fan base would be for Tolkein's Lord of the Rings.

Unfortunately, Jordan's books have set into a trend. The last seven books or more have been long arduous reads with all of the excitement crammed into the last hundred pages of these six hundred plus page books.

I understand that the information in the beginning and middle of the books is vital, and that keeping track of all these characters takes a HUGE effort. I also understand that a LOT of things are going on and that the story is moving along at a pretty quick pace, it just seems longer due to the amount of stuff that's going on.

With all that in mind, I have to say that I found the Knife of Dreams to be fast paced and action packed. The prologue itself is over a hundred pages long but it, like the rest of the book, is fun of cool things.

I don't wanna spoil the book for my friends that haven't read it yet so I'll just say this:

You get to find out if Moiraine is alive or dead.

Aviendha develops the coolest power of any Aes Sedai in the series.

Rand gets screwed.

Mat gets hitched and then loses his wife.

Galina gets what was coming to her.

As does what's-her-butt, the chick in charge of the Seanchen Return who is a Darkfriend.

Matt, Rand, and Perrin each go to war. Except for Perrin, they do this before the end of the book.

Once it was over, I wanted to read the whole thing again, not just the last hundred pages.

I love to Debate

It's funny but I've noticed that when I post comments on Gamegren, I almost inevitably start or continue some sort of argument. My articles have been known to do this but not as rampantly as my posts on my or other people's articles.

"A journey of a thousand miles sometimes ends very, very
badly."


Normally, this would be the result of insulting people, saying mean or untrue things, or using language that is harsher than expected. However, I tend to be as polite and professional as possible, even when I inspire other posters to give me challenges to mortal combat.

The most inflammatory thing that I post would have to be the quotes that I put on the end of my comments. I usually find funny quotes that fit my reasoning and tack them on. They can get pretty mean, if taken wrong. Things like "Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups" and "If the boot fits, kick somebody" may piss off someone whose arguments and reasoning I've just debated circles around.

"The harder you try, the dumber you look."

One reason that I'm so... controversial... is that I play Gurps while most of the posters favor D&D and I am very outspoken as to my opinion of the two games. As a Gurps GM I am much more open to things that are limited by the D&D system. For example, there is a whole article devoted to dealing with massive amounts of hit points titled "142 Hit Points (Or how to account for all those blows to the head)" by Rogue Githyanki.

This is a game system problem. In D&D characters are rewarded by going up in levels, each of which makes the character more powerful in abilities and spells and whatnot, and also gives them more hit points so that they can take more damage.

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent, but
you'd be a fool to withhold that from your superiors."

By way of comparison, Gurps rewards characters with experience points that the player can use to add to their character in different ways. A player can raise a character's sword skill for example, but nothing else would be effected. Thus a player COULD spend all of their points raising their character's hit points and health, but everything else would stay the same. Comparatively speaking, the character would end up taking the same amount of damage and suffering the same as if they hadn't used their points like this because they still wouldn't be skilled enough to avoid the damage, unlike the other members of the group who have learned how to parry with their swords, how to use a shield effectively, and when to run away.

"When you earnestly believe that you can compensate for lack
of skill by doubling your efforts, there's no end to what you can't
do."


Levels and classes are another way the D&D differs from Gurps in a bad way. Classes restrict characters by pigeon-holing them while levels are redundant and unrealistic and the difference between levels is huge.

In D&D a 3rd level and 10th level character each fall 100' onto stone. The 3rd level character dies while the 10th level character can get up, brush himself off, and walk away shaking his head.

"When you find yourself struggling with loneliness, you're
not alone. And yet you are alone. So very alone."


In Gurps, a low level character or a character made with the starting 100 points, and an experienced character of 300 points would both die.



Whoops! I wanted to write about how easy it is for me to start minor flame wars on Gamegren and I digressed into the differences between Gurps and D&D... Oh well.

"If at first you don't succeed, failure may be your
style."

You know what I'd enjoy doing? I'd enjoy being a member of an online debate team. I'd enjoy debating live, but that would take time away from my family or work. I write while at work and I obviously get plenty of time to do so.

I like debate and argument, especially when it is intelligent and all parties involve actually listen and discuss things with eath other.

A few months ago or more I was watching the Apprentice on TV. Two women and one man was on the spot trying to avoid getting fired by Donald Trump. The guy, bracketed by the women, had no chance to say anything because the women were screaming and yelling at him and at each other. When one woman paused for breath, the other one started in. They were obviously out of control.

"Madness does not always howl. Sometimes, it is the quite
voice at the end of the day saying, "Hey, is there room in your head for one
more?"."

After a while Trump stopped this and asked the guy, rather insultingly, why he didn't respond to the women. He said to the guy, "I thought that you were supposed to be good at debating". Now, while I think that Trump is a smart, very successful businessman, this showed that he has his stupid moments just like the rest of us.

If Trump had refereed the boardroom as he does on occasion, and let the guy speak and respond to the women and to Trump and his advisors, then I believe that the guy would have shown that he could debate. But Trump messed up and that guiy was fired. Why? Because the women lost control and Trump let it happen.

I hate stuff like that. I like open, honest debate. But lets be reasonable. Screaming insults and yelling over someone does not mean you won the debate. It means that you're too immature to be in one. That's it.

"None of us is as dumb as all of us."

I am willing to admit when I am wrong and I will change my opinion on things if I am given enough reasons. I'm not like my mother who voted for Bush simply because "he's republican". I researched the candidates and voted for the person that I felt would do the best job. If someone had come along and showed me convincing evidence why Bush was the best candidate, then I would have voted for him. Of course he wasn't, and I didn't, but it could've happened.

"Some people dream of success, while other people live to
crush those dreams."

I wonder if there are debate groups and forums that I could join that are open to a range of topics. I like debating roleplaying, books, some politics, football, childcare, laws, Colorado, Denver, religion, moral and ethical questions, and a host of other things. Usually multiple things at once.

Oh well...


"The downside of being better than everyone else is that
people tend to assume that you're being pretentious."

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Dating advice from a Guy Who Knows

Most everyone I know and hang out with is married, with children. I have been married for five years come March 2nd and we've been together for almost six years. You could say that I've been out of the dating game for long time now and that I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I was suddenly thrust back into the Game.

I found a good example of this at a blog that I like called Rambling Oddities. The author is a single woman who has recently gone through a divorce. She wrote an entry about a guy who she went on a date with once. During this date they "made out" for a while and it was good. After the date he has called her every morning and night, which she thinks is sweet. However, she had a problem when they both had a day off from their jobs and she expected him to ask her out again and he didn't.

Obviously, this woman has some issues with the Game. The rulebook has changed a bit and she hasn't been competitive for a few years. Like a footballplayer who has retired for a couple of years trying to make it in the NFL, she's gettin' whooped.

When I dated, I never did play the Game. If I liked a girl, I told her. If I wanted to go on a date, I asked. Sometimes a girl needed more convincing than others but that's as far as I played. If a girl put out too much too soon or too little for too long, I lost interest.

Reading this girl's post started me thinking. There are a few people that I know, mostly women and mostly at work, who have dived back into the dating game after being married for a few years. Most of these people are lost, rudderless and just going along with the current.

These people ask others for advice on a pretty consistant basis. However, they only ask people of the same sex for advice. Case in point:

Four of us went out to a Mexican resturaunt for lunch a few days ago. One of our friends, who I'll call Ebony, kept asking my wife and the other friend, also a woman, why the guy she was dating behaved and said the things that he did. The girls weren't much help and felt that the guy was a jerk and gave Ebony lots of sympathy. Meanwhile, I had understood the guy and realized that he had just made an embarrassing mistake by saying the wrong thing and this is how he was coping with it. Yet everytime that I tried to explain this the girls would cut me off or ignore me. Who knows more about why a guy acts and says the things that he does better than another guy? Especially if the guy in question is happily married and thus has no agendas of his own (i.e. getting with the girl in question).

The girl in the blog made several mistakes and ignored some warning signs in her guy. So did Ebony.Here's some rules...

1. Never make out with a guy on the first date. A kiss or two is nice, especially if it comes towards the end of the date, but otherwise you're just being slutty. This holds for at least two dates. Don't even think of anything more intimate until you've known the guy for a little bit. If you feel comfortable enough with the guy to laugh during sex, then you're intimate enough to engage in it.

2. If a guy that you barely know is calling you every morning and night, that isn't sweet, it's stalking. At best, this guy is way too clingy and needy. While this girl may think that she wants a guy like this because she's divorced, lonely, and wants to be loved, this will get very old very quickly.

3. She expected him to ask her out and when he didn't, she got hurt and upset. Why is it that women still think that it's up to the guy to make all the advances? Women in today's society (North American women at least) are equal to men. They have fought for this equality for almost 100 years. Why then, do they insist that the guy ask them out?

Girls, if you want to see a guy, especially if you've already gone on a date, then ask him. The worst he can do is say "no" right? Why is this such a big deal?

4. If you want to know why a guy acts the way that he does or says what he said, then ask a happily married guy of the approximate same age. Single guys may be attracted to you and will give you bad advice so that they can have a shot at you. So will guys who are dating and guys unhappy in their marriage. Keep the age gap to within 5 years or so, that way they are still thinking in a similar manner. BTW Gay Guys don't count. They don't think like straight guys and mentally have more in common with women than men.

5. Watch the movie Hitch. Preferably with a date. If you're alone, take notes.

6. If you have questions, ask me. I give good advice simply for the satisfaction that I get for helping others. Seriously.

Monday, February 20, 2006

More roleplaying questions and answers

Hello again. I have some more questions for you, if that's all right. I've mentioned before that I'm useing GURPS, and you've mentioned that you prefer it to other systems. I've run into some difficulties with combat and magic. I find that the basic combat system is too simplified to hold player interest for very long, and yet the advanced combat is a little too detailed and cumbersome. I think the best way to go is to find a medium between the two.

The way that I would do it is to use the simplified rules but required called shots for everything besides wild swings. Once the player get used to called shots you can introduce things like feinting, all-out attacks and defenses, other cool stuff.

At first your players may bitch and moan. However, they will soon appreciate the varied types and amounts of damage that skilled shots gives you.

For example, if I have a skill of 15 and I spent 8 points to get there, why wouldn't I stab that stupid henchman in the heart? It's a negative four and gives me a x3 mutiplier! If three points of damage gets through his armour than he just took NINE points of damage!

I want to maintain the strateigic elements of movement in combat, but lose the option to aim for sepcific body parts. How do you run GURPS combat?

I enforce the called shots. It didn't make sense for someone skilled NOT to call a shot. How do you aim and not pick a spot on the person that you are aiming at? If the player doesn't call a shot then roll off the random table. How many times will a player hit someone in a foot before they start calling shots? This is something that I struggled with when teaching my wife to play.

Any house rules that simplfy or make things easier?

House rules huh? Please bear in mind that most of these have become standard rules in 4th ed.

1. I switch strength and health for the purpose of hit points and fatigue. A skinny weak person is much easier to beat down than someone built like the Rock.

2. when a combat skill gets to level 16 you get an extra attack with that skill. Thus a swordfighter with a 16 sword skill gets two attacks per turn with their sword, but not with anything else or in combination with anything else unless it is also at level 16. Every eight levels grants another extra attack.

When using a ranged weapon like a bow, you need to have the bow skill at 16 AND Fast Draw Arrow at 16 in order to fire two arrows per turn. Or throw two daggers or whatever. However, this excludes aiming so there goes all the bonuses for weapon accuracy and the like...

Also, the way ranged attack rolls are calculated is the book I'm using (GURPS Basic Set, Revised Third Edition) are a little too cumbersome for my tastes. Is there an effective way to simplify this process without overpowering ranged weapons?

3. I rarely use the ranged weapon charts. I just apply a negative. If it's an easy shot, I give it a -1 or 2, if it's hard I give it a -4, if it's really hard I give it a -6 to -8. I add in a -2 each for darkness or cover.


4. I build characters based on their background stories. I don't worry very much about the amount of points spent on each character. If the character is a veteran knight, they can't be made on 100 pts. They'd be hard pressed to make that character with 150 pts. 200 pts would be about right.


This cuts out a lot of munchkinism BTW. If you (the GM) makes all the PCs based on the player's background story and description, and if you discuss and limits things with the player (No Chuck, you can't play a Predator in a fantasy campaign - real player question-), then you will not have any Munchkins characters starting off. After the campaign starts someone may try to Munchkin out, but you have control over what they get and how they get it. Makes it a lot easier...


If someone wants to play a mage that has spent 10 years studying magic, then you could give them a lot of spells even if it cost more points. Of course, someone in that kind of environement would lack other skills like merchant, streetwise, or flirting which could make for some amusing roleplaying...


5. I make reading and writing a skill. Just because you can speak spanish doesn't mean that you can read it. Every language that the character learns they must learn to read and write as well. The literacy advantage is too general and I toss it.

The magic system is also much to complex for my liking. Maybe I just misunderstood how it works in my reading, but it looks as though it has been made so that it can be very useful, but only to those that spend large amounts of character points towards it, making if close to impossible for a beginning character to have any use for magic other than lighting fires and other similar tasks. Would you mind briefly explaining how magic works?

Outside of the cost for Magery and a high IQ, most people only spend a point or so on each spell.

4th edition Magery:

5 pts Magery - the innate ability to cast magic

10 pts Magery - add +1 to all spells

15 pts more per level - additional +1


I also add a magery bonus to detect magic (i.e. magery +3 adds +3 to alertness for that purpose).

Instead of having a few spell from each college, the PC can get multiple spells in one college to start with. If the PC spend six points to get spells in the fire college, then they can have exploding fireball. Which they can use to light campfires if they REALLY wanna show off and don't mind staring forest fires...

Magic in Gurps is only limited by fatigue. Once a mage knows a spell, they know it. There is no memorization needed beyond learning the spell. This makes mages extremely powerful.

For an example of the difference, a D&D mage spends 10 minutes per level of the spell memorizing said spell. A high level mage can spend the entire day just memorizing spells. In Gurps, that same mage can cast any spell that they have ever learned at any given time assuming that they have that fatigue (or mana stone) to power it.


By way of comparison, a person who wants to be an expert swordsman will spend 60 points or so on their Dex, and 30 points on their strength (so that they can do more damage when they hit). This gives them a 15 dex and 13 strength. To raise their swordskill to 16, the minimum for a swordmaster, will cost them 8 more points. Of course, what swordmaster doesn't have Combat Reflexes? That's another 15 points. They probably also have high pain threshold or toughness, but I won't go there.

That's 113 points just on becoming a good swordsman, without anything else added in.

A mage worth their salt will have an IQ of 15 (60 pts) a health of 13 (30 pts) and magery level 3 (35points) After that initial cost of 125 points it only cost them 1 point per spell. But that's if you want the best mage available. You can easily lower the IQ or magery level and start with less points.

I would make a beginning mage with a high IQ. But I would start my magery at 5 pts for a starting mage or 10 pts for a mage with some training. Experience points would buy more levels of magic as my character grows and becomes a more powerful mage.

Please remember, these are starting characters. They will suck at first, comparatively speaking.

I think I have some ideas as to what my game world is going to end up like. I want to explore ideas of morality, good and evil, perceptions of good and evil, etc.

The best way to do this is through the use of religion. If you make religion a major part of every character and of the story itself, then you can explore these ideas that you have.


Tech Level 3, low-mana world (magic is uncommon, but accepted, only those with innate ability can use it, etc.).

I use normal mana (less math involved with figuring spell effects and fatigue) but make it so that players must start with at least the basic level of magery in order to cast magic, they can raise the level later. I figure that maybe one person in every 10,000 can do this. That makes mages rare, but not unheard of, and very cherished. Of course, that also means that magic schools are non existant and spell books have to be found in order to learn new spells. This gives you control over what spells the characters know.

Another thing that I do is to divide magic. In my world there are two types of magic. Elven, which includes nature spells, healing, and other "good" magic and Demonic which incorporates Necromacy, mind control, and other "evil" spells. There are some crossover spells like enchantment and the like as well.

In order to cast Elven spells, characters must be able to read and speak the Elven tongue fluently. They must do the same for the Demon Tongue as well.

The nation (or world, maybe?) that the PCs are in is ruled by a republic that upholds basic rights, such as freedom of expression, racial equality, etc. This government is loved by its people, and hailed as being just and representative of the people.

As the PCs adventure, however, they slowly realize that this government is not all it seems to be. There are many unjust, wrong, and evil things that the gov't not only encourages, it also funds and organizes. The people think they control the government, but in fact it is in the hands of a few powerful individuals. The maginitude of the crimes the government commits will slowly escalate until, at one climactic point, they have to choose between joining the government or working to overthrow it.

Wow, this is very reminiscent of both Star Wars and America right now... Pretty interesting..

If they choose to join the corruption, the PCs will be ordered/forced to commit acts of increasing wrongfulness (is that a word?) until they are removed by ambitious underlings, be it by assassination or political mischef.

Remember, it's never too late for redemtion. Try to leave a way out for them. Even Darth Vader redeemed himself in the end (and thus fullfilled the prophesy).

If they decide to lead a revolution, they can be crushed by the government or they can succeed and expose the corruption to the populace. This corrupt goverment is mostly beneficial to the general populace, and the moral question of whether it should be removed will run throughout all this.

This is gonna be a three campaign cycle. You are going to have to plan this out well in advance but you will have to be very flexible in the way that you run the games. I would use an open ended book format and a linear timeline to keep yourself organized.

The timeline is just that. A timeline showing when things will happen and what things have happened in the past. These are major events. You can have more than one time line. (one for the characters, one for major events, etc).

The book format is much like a novel. This is how I write adventures.

I start with a chapter name. Something really short that reminds me what the chapter is about. Each chapter is one short adventure. Everything that is needed for the adventure is there including NPCs. An extra copy of each is at the end of the chapter as are any maps that I used so that I can reference them later if the PCs go back to that abandoned monastery to hole up for a while or something.

I also include any information that I wanna drop in (forshadowing) for future adventures. The timeline helps here as well.

As an example, I once ran a campaign for my wife and her sister. My wife played a mercenary with some training but minimal talent with magic. Her sister played a talented and skilled mage who grew up sheltered. They were both trained by the same mage (which is how they met).

My wife's character received a letter stating that her uncle had died and requested that she come for her inheritance. She decided to go and brought along my sister in-law, Anita. They also brought along a 14 year old NPC named Ashley.

That adventure was called Inheritance. Ashley was the forshadowing.

They made it through that first adventure and the one that followed just fine. Anita got messed up a couple of times, Kat (my wife) killed a lot of bad guys, they rescued a princess, and met another PC played by Mike (now Anita's husband).

The next adventure was called Princess. The rescued princess had to talk a lot to the PCs. One thing that she had to mention was the small gold ring that she wore. This ring would later to prove her identity to her brother and father, thus exposing the witch who had kidnapped her and taken her place.

The next adventure was titled CSI.

They finally got back home to the city that they started from and regaled their master, the Sorceress in Silver (Lady Silverymoon), with stories of their adventures. She decides to reward them with dinner at a fancy resturaunt. They leave Ashley behind as she is still only an apprentice while the other two are considered Journeymen.

While they were at dinner, someone broke into Silverymoon's house, stole her mage's staff, and rituallistically tortured and murdered young Ashley.

The players were heartbroken and PISSED! We actually had to stop playing so that the girls could cry it out and even Mike was mad at me. None of them realized that the only reason Ashley was there in the first place was to kick off the thrid adventure with her murder!

I had two antagonist in this adventure and I had a lot of clues to keep track of. I also had timelines for the Drow elf (murderer/theif) and the Vampire (who had bitten and subjugated the elf and ordered him to steal the staff). This was a cool advneture...

BTW Anita named her newborn Ashley.

If the PCs do succeed with their revolt, one of the neighboring, barbaric nations will seize the opportuinity of a powerful nation is shambles and invade. This could provide opportuinities for PCs to perform in more tactical, strategic international conflict commanding soldiers rather than small skirmishes involving themselves. However, with the government in shambles it is likely that the PCs' nation will be captured and enslaved.

Or it could lead to the PCs founding their own nation in the remnants of the republic. Much like what happened with Russia. If one barbaric nation attacks, others will. But they must also guard against attacks from their neighbors as well. None of them can afford to send their entire military. Not even half.

That gives the PCs a chance.


The public could turn against the PCs, with their view changing from admiration of the heroic rebellion to scorn of the "anarchist scum" that indirectly caused the enslavement of many people. Obviously, this campaign requires that the PCs have very strong morals. I plan on presenting questions like "Is doing evil now justified by the good that will result from it?" and "Should we destroy an evil organization if it helps a lot of people?", and I also plan on encouraging retrospective consideration, like "Was what we did really the right thing?".

The way I do this is through an NPC (or rarely another player who have really good morals themselves. My friend Dawn is very religious and does this well) acts as the groups conscience.

One time I turned my friend Dan's character into a woman, had her raped and impregnated, and then gave him the moral choice: Do I turn myself back into a man, thus killing the child, or do I go through with the entire pregnacy, have the baby, and then turn myself back into a man? He chose to have the baby.

I plan on creating several nonhuman races for this world, I don't want to use the common fantasy races. Any ideas, tips, or tweakings I should make? Thanks for your time.

I love this part! I make up a seperate culture for each race based on their lifespan and the common idea of what they are like. For example:

Orcs raise their children in pits and don't them enough food for all of them to eat. Eventually the weaker ones die off and the strong get more food. When they reach the age of adulthood, the orcs take two children out, tie their left wrist to each other with only two feet of slack and give them each a knife. The victor is an adult and the loser goes in the stew pot.

As you can see, orcs in my world are strong, viscious brutes. They respect only the strong and take what they want by force. They cannot be negotiated with or reasoned with. They aren't stupid either, they have the same intelligence as a human. My players all fear orcs.

Elves are a mixture of ancient Japonese art, philosophy, politeness, dress, and martial abilities combined with the Apache Indian religion, strategy and tactics, dress, and family unit. Apaches raise their children as a village. The child calls every woman mother, ever man father.

They also see no differences between men and women. Elves are a nation of individuals with no ruler. Everyone is allowed to speak and to decide for themselves what they will do. If given a task, the elf with the most knowledge or experience takes charge. Elves are not ambitious at all.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

The Mayan calender, a really complicated way to tell time...

The Mayan Calender was divided into two calenders. The first calander, the Tzolk'in is a 260 day calender. The Haab is a 365 day calender (1 solar year). 52 Haabs is a calender round or 1 cycle.

1 week is 13 days based on the Tzolk'in calender. This is called 1 Trelena.
1 month is 20 days based on the Haab calender. This is 1 Veintena.

Each day of Veintena (the month) is named:


1. Imix
2. Ik
3. Ak'Bal
4. K'an
5. Chikchan
6. Kimi
7. Manik
8. Lamat
9. Muluk
10. Oc
11. Chuen
12. Eb
13. B'en
14. Ix
15. Nem
16. Kib
17. Kab'An
18. Etz'Nab
19. Kawak
20. Ajan

The 13 days of a week cycle as well:

1. Imix
2. Ik
3. Ak'Bal
4. K'an
5. Chikchan
6. Kimi
7. Manik
8. Lamat
9. Muluk
10. Oc
11. Chuen
12. Eb
13. B'en
1. Ix
2. Nem
3. Kib
4. Kab'An
5. Etz'Nab
6. Kawak
7. Ajan
8. Imix
9. Ik
10. Ak'Bal
11. K'an
12. Chikchan
13. Kimi
1. Manik
2. Lamat
3. Muluk
4. Oc
5. Chuen
6. Eb
7. B'en

And so on. The complete cycle (every number and name combination) takes 260 days. The year starts on the winter solstice.

There are 18 months of 20 days each in the Haab (solar year) and a 5 day month at the end of the year known as the Wayab (Nameless Days).

1. Pop
2. Uo
3. Zip
4. Zotz
5. Tzel
6. Xul
7. Yazkin
8. Mol
9. Chen
10. Yax
11. Zac
12. Ceh
13. Mac
14. Kankin
15. Muan
16. Pax
17. Kayab
18. Cumku
19. Wayab - During the 5 Nameless Days of Wayab the portals between the Mortal Realm and the Underworld dissolves. No boundries prevent the ill-intending deities from causing disasters. This is a time of fear, prayer, and staying secured behind locked doors.

Each day is Identified by the day number or name followed by the name of the month. For example, 1 Pop or Imix Pop.

The Haab repeats every 52 years. This makes dating things hard. There are no names for the years or cycles. The way things are dated is my Long Count.

1 Day = 1 Kin
20 Days = 20 Kin = 1 Uinal
360 = 18 Uinal = 1 Tun = 1 Solar Year (Haab) = 1 Tun
7,200 = 20 Tun = 1 Katun = 20 SY = 20 Tuns
144,000 = 20 Katun = 1 Bactum = 395 SY = 400 Tun

Dates are arranged from the largest block time to the smallest. 4 Katuin 2 Tun 6 Uinal 3 Kin = 576,843 days ago. This equates to just over 554 Cycles.

This arrangement would work much better if the Calender Rounds or Cycles were also named. I would go with 10 Cycles (520 Years) and name each. This would allow Cycles to repeat but also allow accurate records to be kept. If the Cycle of the Dragon was three Cycles ago, you still have a good starting point.

There are 1,040 days in a Cycle. 936 Months. Multiplied by 10 is 10,400 Days and 9,360 Months. That's a long time if you are trying to look up something. Just sayin' ...

Venus was tracked and had it's own 584 Day Calender. Venus was used to divine such things as Coronations and Auspicious times to start a War.

The Lunar Series is a half-year calender used to keep track of the different phases of the moon.

So now you know, and that's half the battle.

GM Advice

First of all, I love helping other people. Especially gamers. Secondly, I write while I'm at work. My jobs is boring and this makes the day go much faster, and I love to write. Please bear in mind that I play Gurps, not D&D, so some of these recommendations may not be suitable for other games. I wrote this in response to an email that I received from a fan (?) of mine from the Gamegrene website that I write for. I thought is was worth putting up here...
Remember, it's your job to entertain yourself and your players. Manipulate them
as much as possible, but never let them catch you doing it. Be subtle whenever
you can.

One of the best tips for keeping groups together is to make it as exciting as possible for everyone invloved. Things like character backgrounds, creation, and ideas are comparatively boring and can be handled outside of the gaming sessions. I prefer writing up a short background for the campaign listing recommended skills, types of characters, local history and the like and emailing it to all the players. They then have to write up a character profile and background which suites the powerlevel and flavor of the game. I make their character for them (remember, Gurps is a point based system. I believe that D&D 3rd ed is also) and send them a copy for their approval. Thus at game time everyone is ready to go. If the players don't want to write up an email then you can sit with them, discuss their character, (remember to take notes!) and then write up their character.
Give them plenty of choices.

It helps if the characters have some sort of connection to each other, but that is not neccesary.
This also applies to "downtime" actions. Watching a player haggling over a sword is boring for everyone but the player and the GM. Do things like this during breaks (when pizza arrives, cigarrette breaks, whatever), not during the game. It slows down the action too much. If this must be handled during the game, then roll skill checks to solve it. Remember that the merchant will always be better than the player at this as this is what they do for a living.
Always leave them a way out.

If you can do this outside of the game, always make the players haggle. Make sure that you roll, but give them modifiers to whatever merchant or haggling skill that they possess based on what they say. Even when I talk the players up 150% they still had fun, and that's what matters.
When things bog down, throw in a fight to wake them up.

Always start a new campaign with combat. This is everyone's favorite part of the game, it introduces the game mechanics in a fun way, adds tension, and forces the character's to bond a little, even if only by having similar experiences to talk about.
Never roll combat for two NPCs, just describe what happens.

Make sure that this combat has a reason and directly involves your plot. The very beginning of Star Wars episode IV is a good example. So is Serenity, Cellular, and most Jackie Chan movies.
Never say "you can't do that". Just apply an appropriate negative modifier to whatever they are attempting. Always let them know what the modifier is and why you are giving it (as long as it doesn't involve the hidden abilities of another party. then you would just say that there is a modifier and make them roll without knowing what it is. Use this rarely and always be fair.).
Change your voice and mannerisms when playing different
NPCs, this makes them individuals in you mind and in the minds of your
players.

As for getting everyone together... That's a bit harder. I don't know the people involved, so this part is up to you. You have several options though.

1st you can meet every other week on a given day. Because you are in High School and have after school activities, I'd recommend Saturday night. That way you can play late and sleep in Sunday if you need to. And they have a week off to do things. That also gives you and extra week to plan evil things to do to them.

2nd. You can have two or more small groups instead of one normal sized group if half your group can consistantly meet at one time and the other half can meet at another. If you do go with multiple small groups then you can either have them work together as part of the same team, or as opposing teams which is equally as cool but has some long range problems (eventually one group HAS to lose). This way the group setting is fluid and characters can come and go as they players do.

3rd. You can NPC characters whose players can't make it for a session. Keep these characters in the background during the session that you are NPCing the character and do NOT screw over the character while the player is absent. This is for those players who have legitimate reasons for not being in the game or who only miss a session every now and then.
Don't be shy, you are the focus of the game. Be confident in
yourself and your story.

Having your group role-play as opposed to roll-play is a combination of the game system, the way you run the game, and the players. Most of it is up to you.

As a new GM I would recommend getting a system that encourages roleplaying. It does have to be a system that is easy to learn and it has to appeal both to you and your players. Good examples are Gurps and Serenity (if you're a fan of Firefly and the movie Serenity this works great. You'll have to start reading and watching westerns though).

Gurps is a generic system. You can play in any genre, any time, any world, and tell any story that you want. You are rewarded for the way you play, not by the things you can kill. Serenity is the same way plus you have the series and movie that you can show your friends that will introduce them to the world and culture that you'll be running a game in.
Listen to your players' feedback. Adjust your game
accordingly.


You stated that you started a fantasy adventure. I'm going to stay with that in my examples.

Since you are new at this, don't just arbitrarily make up the characters. Talk to your friends and find out what stories they like and why. What do they connect with? Do they like romance, fighting, comedy, thrillers, mystery, horror? You can combine all of these into whatever setting that you want (remember Firefly had all of the elements).
Let the players take turns in the spotlight. Design and run
adventures that promot this. The best fighter in the group is not going to be
the best politician.

I would recommend that you go to the following link and download Caravan to Ein Arris. You can use this adventure with any system, though it is best in Gurps. The players hire onto a caravan and go on several missions during the trip. This allows for a fluid group setting like I mentioned above. There are options for espionage, comedy, and lots of fighting. It'll introduce the characters and players to life in a caravan, the desert, two kingdoms, and a religious order.
http://e23.sjgames.com/samples.html

Be realistic, but fudge reality a bit when needed.


In the beginning of this adventure the characters must pass tests to get hired onto the caravan. Guards, scouts, and other fighters will have to prove their combat skills. Healers and mages will have to prove their magical skills and prove that their skills will be usefull (no illusionists).
Be fair to everyone.

For fighters, I have always tested them with ranged weapons, melee weapons, and hand to hand. They are graded on skill. However, they must obey tournement rules, ie. no cripple or killing blows, one or two points of damage max.

I had a mage who was a gifted healer, both mundane and magical. She was tested by being disemboweled on the spot and having to heal herself.
Player's love misery. Be hard for their characters,
preferably without permanent damaging them. Make life hard.

Things like that keep the players on their toes, make for extremely interesting stories, and really draw the players in. But make sure that you reward the character for what you've done to them. That healer anded up as one of the highest paid people in the caravan. She made triple what the other players made and was given some rank as well. But boy did she freak out when the guy disemboweled her and said, "Heal thyself..." Ah... good times...

Monday, February 13, 2006

Beautiful: Christina Aguilera

Grandmothers and the changes that time makes

My Mother-in-law Debbie has always been a sad sorry figure to me. When I met her, she was a chain smoking alchoholic with severe mental and maturity problems. She had to be the center of attention and she accomplished this by acting like a fool. I could only handle short periods of time around her before I'd get fed up and start saying mean things.

I spoke with her in the hospital when our first child was born. I told her that there would be no smoking around our daughter and she agreed. However, whenever we came over, she would smoke. We asked her to go outside and she refused. She bought an air cleaner machine, but that was completely inadequet for the job and she eventually gave up on it. She tried going to a back room, but she hated having the door closed, so that didn't work either.


As the years have gone by, things have changed.


I felt that she had a choice. She could smoke alone or not smoke (while we were there) and have company. I was willing to work with her, but I will not compromise when my child is involved. Especially when Kathryn started having bad reactions too being around smoke and nicotine. Needless to say, our visits got shorter and shorter and the time between visits grew as longer and longer.

I always looked to my own mother with all her faults as a much better example of what a grandmother should be. She is nice, she lives a healthy lifestyle, and best of all, she respects the parents wishes in regards to their children.

I guess that the biggest difference between the two was selfishness. Debbie was extremely selfish, always putting her wants, needs, and addictions first. My mother was the opposite and went out of her way to help everyone as much as possible, even after breaking her foot and the having surgery on each of her feet.


As the years have gone by, things have changed. This really hit home for me in the last few days.


My mother and her fiance have bought a Bed and Breakfast Inn up in Canada and now spend most of the year up there. We only get to see them from November to March now. It is now Febuary and we have seen them six times, including the holidays and Drake's birthday party.

I asked them to watch our kids while I took my wife on a date for Valentines. They agreed, but would only watch the kids for three hours because "they had things that they had planned". I asked if we could visit a bit afterwards and she said maybe for a little bit.

The date with my wife was supposed to start at ten in the morning with an eighteen hole miniture golf course with black lights and florescent paints everywhere (very cool and loads of fun) followed by an early lunch. Unfortunately, while the mall opens at ten, the stores don't open until eleven on Sundays. Neither do the resturants. There went one hour.

We played golf (my first time in twenty years or so) and it rocked. I definately would NOT play real golf, but this was cool. Unfortunately, it also took an hour.

I called my mom and let her know what was going on. I told her that we hadn't eaten yet and asked if she could watch the kids just a little longer. At first she said no. I pointed out that we still had an hour and that we would probably be there twenty minutes late at most. She reluctantly agreed as long as we picked the kids up by twelve thirty.

We ate lunch and arrived at their place just as they did (they had walked to a nearby hardware store). We visited a little, until I found out that the reason she didn't wanna watch the kids longer was because there was a made for TV movie playing that she wanted to watch. That pissed me off.

Quality family time is Love.


I mean, think about it. She is gone for most of nine months out of the year. When she is here, she only sees us a couple of times. When she has the time and opportunity to spend some time with us, she chooses to watch a movie. Friggen record it! That's what VCRs are for!

I know that we didn't give her a lot of time to prepare for us. We called her a day ahead and asked her to help us. I am gratefull that she watched the kids. But she's leaving again in less than a month. Mom, you need to get your priorities straight. Family comes first.

In contrast, my Mother-in-law Debbie has become a completely different person. She has received mental health counseling and has kept up with her medication. She has cut down on her drinking. Instead of slugging Jack Daniels she sips at wine. She has learned that she doesn't need to be the center of attention. She listens now, and responds intelligently. Conversations with her are now interesting and sometimes even enlightening.

And after four years of trying, Debbie has finally given up smoking so that she can be around her grandchildren. This is one of the most selfless and redeeming acts that I've personally seen anyone do. It was a hard war for Debbie. She'd win a battle here or there, quitting for days or weeks or even a month, but in the end her cigarettes always beat her. This time she has been clean for over three months now. She is a completely different person.

Even people in my family and friends of ours who see her on the occasional birthday party noticed how much younger and healthier she is looking.

My family visits the In-laws house every couple of weeks now. It's a pleasure being there.

The biggest contrast between my mom and Debbie isn't lifestyle and health anymore. Now it's selfishness. Only this time, Debbie is the selfless one.

I can call up the In-laws anytime that they are home, with or without advance notice, and ask them to watch the kids and they will. And unlike my mom, they will do so gladly, without acting like they are doing me a huge favor. When we come to pick up the kids, it's expected that we will spend the rest of evening with them as their guest.

This really hit home for me.


This is quality family time. This is what they want in payment for watching the kids. That's love.

I love family time. I love hanging out with my In-laws. We have spent more time with the In-laws this new year than with anyone else. Including our friends.

Thank you Debbie. You have made sacrifices and changes for your family and it has not gone unnoticed. We appreciate, love, and admire you for them. Keep up the good work. You make us proud.

Saturday, February 11, 2006

Democracy is only valid if it benefits America

The Middle East Peace Process got the shaft when the Palestinian people overwhelmingly, and quite democratically, voted in favor of Hamas; the friendly bunch who represent the Islamic fundamentalist political viewpoint. Essentially Hamas' party line is that Israel has no right to exist at all and that every Israeli should be driven into the sea, weather permitting.

Now couple Hamas' political victory with the fact that Benjamin Nettenyahu is slowly creeping back into the forefront of Israeli politics, and it's easy to see how things can go south right quick. In fact, I think everyone in the Middle east is starting to get rid of their handbaskets, just to be safe. Nettenyahu is a man who's view of Arabs is something akin to General Phil Sheridan's 19th century view of American Indians, "The only good injun is a dead injun."

It's also funny to note that right after the Palestinian people democratically elected the Hamas slate, Washington immediately started to make rumblings about cutting off financial aid to the Palestinian Authority . So basically, judging by this reaction, I take the current administration's philosophy to be that democratic elections are the ideal, unless, of course, you democratically elect people who don't like us... in which case we starve you.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't like Hamas or what they purport to stand for. But when you have an administration that keeps harping about the need for democratic process in the Middle East and then, after a perfectly successful demonstration of that process, immediately hint that the United States might not recognize the democratically elected government because their political platform is anti-American; well then... that's just a bunch of horseshit.

"Well, yeah...but Hamas is a terrorist organization!" Sinn Fein
were considered to be terrorists at one time, but we deal with them now, don't we?

If nothing else, this election proves one thing a lot of people seem rather ignorant of; that Democracy isn't a magic bullet. Just because a government is elected by the populace, doesn't mean it's going to be one that's friendly towards Washington, Tel Aviv or London, and this is something people just have to get used to. And it's certainly not some sort of philosophical package the United States can gift to other nations with laser-guided smart bombs and the 82nd Airborne. It's just a system where people in a region or state determine their own form and content of government, whether we like it or not.

If Hamas wants to talk, and signifies that they're willing to work towards change without blowing shit up, I see no reason for Washington not to deal with them; especially after all the choice sound-bites about the need for democracy in the region. However, if Washington chooses to ignore the newly elected government of the Palestinian Authority arbitrarily, without any dialogue, then all that crap about Democracy in the Middle East was just as valid as all the bullshit that they churned out about WMDs and pre-war links to al Qaeda in Iraq. Just another packet of sound and fury which utlimately signified nothing.

Not that anybody in America will care. They'll still back an illiterate war-mongering asshole like George Bush just because "he's Republican." Idiots...

And that's all I have to say about that. Sorry for the stale diatribe, but thanks for stopping in just the same.

This article was written for the most part by Javier Putterman. I changed and added things to it as well.

Turkish Castle

Other People's Memorable Characters

In my ongoing tribute to the half of my life that I've spent roleplaying, here's some of the most entertaining and memorable characters that people have played while I GMed. This list is MUCH longer than the list of characters that I've played as I have spent far more time running games than playing them. All characters are made and played with Gurps unless otherwise noted. Without further ado...

Shakura: A female human mercenary with some magic at her disposal. She is tall, blonde and strong. She showed a viscious streak early on and has killed more enemies than everyone in the group combined. Her magic spells are minimal and she has never relied on them. Her weapons of choice was her sword, a non-descript piece of servicable metal and an Elven War Glaive that she discovered during her travels.

One of her more interesting aspects was her love interest, a young silver dragon who had polymorphed himself into a silver haired elf named Gabriel and traveled with the group so that he could experience the human culture. Shakura and Gabriel fell in love over the course of a dozen adventures.

They culminated their love the night before the final battle offshore of a hidden elven island. The next day Shakura and Gabriel, in dragon form, fought the Dark General of the Demon Army and his Ancient red dragon Fiammanticasulbordo di'uscire (Antica).

The battle was viscious and Gabriel lost his life. But they killed Antica and, maybe, the Dark General as well.

Shakura became pregnant from her one night with Gabriel and she has since retired to raise their child in peace.


"Gabriel, get out of there!"



Atlantis: A female human noble woman from a minor house. She was short and attractive, with long blonde hair and porceline skin. She studied alongside Shakura under the tutaledge of the Sorceress in Silver, Lady Sliverymoon.

Atlanta was naive but extremely intelligent and excelled at magical studies. She travelled with Shakura and they shared many adventures during which Atlantis helped rescue a princess and rewarded with lands far outstripping that of her family.

She also unwittingly helped a vampire named Tievel unlock the gate that allowed a demon army into the world.

Atlantis fought her way across the continent and reported to the Emporer that a demon army was marching on his empire. Unfortunately, she also let him know that she had helped unleash this army on his empre.

She is assumed to have been killed.


"They can't hurt me, I'm an innocent!"


Sabine: A female human mage. Short and cute, with shoulder length brown hair. She was a mage, scholar, and healer of some note and had spent the entirety of her life in schools of various sorts. She is extremely intelligence and a very skilled mage and healer.

She was extremely memorable because of the fact that she was a complete and utter coward, which allowed me to mess with her. Early on in the game I had an agent for an unknown entity hire her (through sheer intimidation) to spy on the leader of the caravan that the characters had just been hired on and to report any unusual activity on pain of death.

Of course this meant that she told their enemies in advance every mission that the players went on. None of the other players could figure out how their enemies kept finding them! It was great!
One interesting little anecdote is the test that Sabine had to pass to get hired on with the caravan. She informed Tsorvano, the second in command of the caravan, that she was a physician and could people of injury and illness using means mundane and magic.

He asked her if there was anything that she couldn't heal and she told him death.

So he disemboweled her with a knife and told her to heal herself.

After some agonizing effort and much frantic rolling of dice, she was able to do so. She was immediately hired on as one of the highest paid people in the caravan. Ah... good times...


"Ca-caa! I'm a bird, I'm a bird!"



Malakai Jones: This is the name that Charles has used more times than I can remember. Of all of his characters, he has two that are truly distinctive. I'll try to seperate them a bit, but I honestly can't remember their names.

First is a male human rascal. We'll call him Ed. Ed grew up in the lawlessness of Ten Towns and can't really be classified using the D&D system of fighter, mage, thief, etc. He was mostly a fighter, so we'll go with that.

Ed made his living mugging people, running messages, thug work, and anything else he could do. He discovered an advancing army of humanoid creatures marching from the moutains, across the frozen tundra, and into Ten Towns.

During the short-lived war, he managed to single-handedly killed the Demon General of this army and the insane mage who had enthralled all of these humanoids into serving him.

As a reward he was made a member of the Dwarven Nation and allowed to start his own clan. He was also sent to the Southlands to find other Dwarves to supplement this colony as too many of the Dwarves had died in the battle to conitue living here. They didn't reproduce fast enough and would die off within the next couple of generations.

Ed travelled most of the length of the continent. Along the way he found the Dwarves that he was looking for and convinced them to help the Northernmost Nation, he had his leg tore up and turn gimpy, and he met and fall in love with a woman from the caravan who he later rescued from pirates and married.

He is now living back in Ten Towns wife his wife, her brother, and their three kids in an inn that they own that the Dwarves built for him. Nice...

"That mage was a pussy..."


Next is a Minotuar that I'll call Crump. Crump was made using D&D 2nd Ed. and maxed out on his strength and constitution. Because of his strength and size,Crump was able to use a two-handed sword in one hand. He fought with two of them. He was also able to regenerate damage because his constitution was so high.

Yes, Charles is the most munchkin player that I've ever known.

This minotuar only played in one session and didn't survive that. But the battle underground in a massavie chamber of an ancient abandoned Dwarven city over-run with evil dwarves with giants as shock trrops in which he died was awe inspiring and truly epic. Thus he is remembered.

"That's crap! I get the Dwarves to resurect him!"

"Dude, they can't. Even if they could ressurect someone, your character was crushed by several tons of rocks. There's nothing left but goo."

"Well, I have them dig him out and bag him. I'll go search for someone who can ressurect him!"



My friend Dan had a couple of great characters. Unfortunately, that was eight years ago and I can't remember their names. The first one was a human male from a small town who fled and army of trollocs with two of his friends. I'll call this character Crip.

Crip was always getting messed up, but always did whatever needed to be done. He lost a foot to a black dragon that he killed by blowing up barrels of Dwarven Spirits under the dragon's chest, knocking the drogan unconcious and off the ledge that he was gripping. The dragon fell over a thousand feet to his death.

Crip did this after losing his foot.

Crip also killed the evil sorceror, and was blinded doing it.

He regained some vision through a magical eyeball that another PC put in, after first cutting out the old eye.

Left to plunder a magical storehouse, Crip accidently turned himself into an (ugly) woman. He then stepped through a magical doorway and ended up a foreign sorceror's prisoner. He escaped and offered two men the use of his body if they would guide him back to the city that he was from.

He tried to renege on the deal once they got him to a main road and they ended up raping him several times as "payment". Crip did escape the men and made it back to the city, but the damage had already been done. He was pregnant.

The mage with them told him how to reverse the gender bending cloak that he had put on but informed Crip that doing so would kill the child that was growing inside of him which might have... unpleasant side effects... in a man's body.

So Crip bore a nice healthy boy, breast fed him, and gave him to an order of Shoalin Monks. That baby would become his next character.

"Dude, this sucks..."



Dan's next character I'll call Fu. Fu was the son of Dan's Gender confused character Crip. Unlike Dan or Crip, Fu was extremely polite, law abiding, gentle, and celibate. He tried to never use his martial arts, even when directly attacked! He once refused to escape from prison with the other characters because it was against the law even though they had been falsely imprisoned in the first place. They had to knock him out and carry him to freedom.

When he woke, he wanted to go back and turn himself in but they wouldn't tell him which direction to go. They were also to smart to ride directly away from the city...

"Wise man say, He who stands on toilet is high on pot."

I'll think of more later, that's enough for now.

Friday, February 10, 2006

Game Masters of the Past and Present.

I haven't gone through as many Game Masters (GM) as you might think in the last 15 years due to the fact that I run the game most of the time. I am a VERY experienced GM and after 15 years, I have had a lot playing experience as well. Here is a list of some memorable GMs that I've had in the past.


First on my list would have to be James. Both one of the best and one of the worst GMs of all times. I have dozens of stories about how bad his games were. He did everything from player favoritism, to superpowerful NPCs, to blantant cheating, to favoring NPCs over the Pcs, to a host of other things that GMs are not supposed to do. However, in doing so he showed me what I should avoid, thus training me to be a better GM.

He is also my first GM. We were all young and we made all the mistakes that young newbies make when playing. He was willing to learn though, and in the end James became a very good GM. He is one of the few GMs that I'd still like to play with. Unfortunately, we have lost touch over the years and I have no real idea of where I could find him.

"O.k., what's he do?"

"Oh, he attacks you. Heh heh heh..."



Next up would be Alex. I never got to play more than one session of any given game system with Alex as he was always trying out new games. Alex was good at setting up a mood and at teaching new game systems to people. I would have loved to have played more with Alex but that never happened.

"All right guys, we're gonna play a game called..."




My dear friend Dawn would have to be next. Dawn is in the unique position of having plenty of time to write, research, create, and run adventures and campaigns in a world of her choosing even though she is married with two kids and is eight months pregnant. She is hampered a bit by a lack of confidence in herself as a GM and has no motivation. The other downside is that she lives twenty miles away and it's hard to visit with her on a regular basis.

Dawn is my best hope for a fresh new GM. I have a lot of faith in her abilities and am confident that she will make a great GM someday.

"O.k. Calamar, what's the negative for a called shot to the nads?"

"Woofman's got nads?"



Eric is the only GM ever to challenge me in such a way that I couldn't think of anything to do. No one else has ever made me do more than hesitate slightly, no matter how hard they thought the adventure would be. My character may die or get seriously messed up, but I always had a plan. I always knew what to do. Until I played Shadowrun with Eric. In his games I am rudderless, just going along with things and hoping that I could figure out something to do.

His fantasy game is a bit easier. Fantasy is my favorite genre and it's what I'm most comfortable with. Part of the problem that other GMs have with me is that they run fantasy games. Maybe they should a different genre...

"What do you do now?"

"I don't know. I guess I'll go have breakfast at Denny's while I think it over."


Mike is a problem GM. He is the kind of person you have run a game when you are desperate to play. The entire time that your playing with him you're wondering why you had to stoop to this. It's like paying a prostitute for sex. You're not going to be happy, it's gonna cost you, and you end up feeling worse for having done it.

He is the absolute most chauvanistic GM that I've ever had. He does have some good qualities, but he is unwilling to work on his GMing skills and takes criticisms of any sort as an insult. I don't think that I'll have to play with him again, he now lives in another state and it doesn't look like he'll be coming back for anything more than the occasional visit.

That's probably a good thing.

"You're a Seargent in the Guard. You have command over all the troops in the docks."

"Dude, I'm just a Seargent. Shouldn't an officer be in charge of the docks? This is the capital."


Jay was another really bad GM. In the three or four months that I played in his group I never found out if the game actually had a plot. There was so much immature fighting among the party members that the game never really took off.

The only reason that I had fun at all was because my character was cool and I got to play with my friend Freddy who is an awesome player and can lighten up any campaign.

"There's a massive hole in the wall, maybe twelve feet high. It's too dark in there to see anything in there but muzzle flashes from a chain gun and body parts that come flyin' out. What do you do?"

"I shoot all ten of my grapples into the middle of the darkness and try to yank whatever is in there out into the light. What happens?"




Jeff was the alternate GM for Jay. Jeff ran Call of Cthulu set in the modern world. I had a really cool character, a Gothic Drug Dealer with a degree in chemistry. Jeff was the main reason that Jay's game never got going. He hated some of the players (yes, that definately included me!) and took it out on our characters. When I missed a game, he punished my character for it in-game.

He actually had a pretty decent plot based on the music of the Insane Clown Posse but he destroyed it with his own stupidity and immature pettiness. It didn't help that Mick was playing either. The rest of the group was fairly decent and could have done something cool. But alas, it never happened.


"I AM New York!!!" (You had to be there)



Denon had a very in-depth world and when he GMed, he was really good. Unfortunately he was one of those cologne and perfume salesmen working the streets and didn't have a lot of time for gaming. Also, our group back then only had one experienced player and only two of us had an IQ in the triple digits. So, while Denon was good as a GM, he was a dissapointment in the end.


"As you run at him your feet are suddenly rooted to the ground. Make a Dex check to not fall on you face."

I make it.

"Now make a health roll at -4 to avoid snapping your ankles as you suddenly flip 180 degrees to face back the way you came."

"What?!?" It's o.k., I made that roll too. Good thing I'm lucky...



Mick is the absolute worse GM that I've ever had. He made everything too easy. Nothing was ever hard. There were no challenges. As bad as that was, he then started trying to add his sexual fantasies into the game. He had a fetish for spanking, both men and women. It was when he tried living out his fetish on my character that I stopped playing with him, or seeing him at all. Enough is enough, man. Go win a Darwin Award or something you sick bastard.

"All we're gonna do is tie you face down over the cannon and whip you with a cat o' nine tails."

"What!?!?!"

"Well, you've been pretty bad and you have to be punished. What do you do? Do you bend over the cannon?"

"No..."

"So what do you do?"

"I give them the finger..." Here I flipped Mick off. "...And I jump off the back of the ship."

"You what?!?!"

"I'd rather die than be your bitch. We're through here. Have a nice trip home."


I'm trying to think of other GMs that I've had but I'm drawing a blank. I know that I haven't written anything about my wife, her sister, Charles, or Grant, all of whom have run games for me in the past. The reason is because they only ran a couple of sessions and that was years ago.

Oh well, as soon as I send this off I'll think of more GMs. That's how it always works...

Favorite Characters of the Past

I have been roleplaying for fifteen years now, fully half my life. In order to take my mind off of how old that makes me, I have decided to write some articles recollecting the best and worst of the last decade and a half that I've spent roleplaying.

I want to start with some of my most memorable characters. These are characters that I've played as PCs and as NPCs. Some of them have been recycled a couple of times. Here ya go...



Calamar Veladorna: Half-elf assassin. Played using D&D 2nd Ed.

Calamar is almost six feet tall. He has pure white hair and vibrant blue eyes that seem to glow when he is angry or excited. He has a few spells under his belt, mostly from the fire college. He is a trained killer and could be said to be a multiple Dan Martial artist. He prefers close up face to face kills rather than using poison or missile weapons.

Of course I'll start with Calamar, my blogs is named after him after all. He popped up about thirteen years ago as an npc in the City of the Three Suns. I was running an adventure for a friend of mine who was playing a Paladin.

The City of Three Suns, also known as the City of White, was where the Temple of Three Suns was located and the center of all civilized religion. On the surface the city is clean, well organized, and a shinning example of goodness throughout the land. Under the surface, hidden from the eyes of the Church and the city's officials, lies the dark underbelly of this dangerous city.

My friend's character was a newly minted Paladin, very naive and earnest in his belief.

Someone started assassinating visiting ambassadores in the Castle. Paladins were stationed within the castle in an effort to bolster the defenses and to help stop the murderer.

Calamar was the assassin, of course. He used disguises, trickery, a little magic, and a bold ruthless disregard to others in order to succeed. He met the Paladin after killing the newest of the diplomats. The Paladin followed him though the castle, over the wall, and into the city.

Calamar led the young Paladin into an underground fighting arena (bloodsprts were illegal) where the Paladin witness a young boy and an old man, tied together at the wrist, slashing at each other with razors. Calamar escaped through the crowd.

The Paladin made it his mission in life to bring Calamar to justice. He came close several times but Calamar always managed to get away. Following and tracking the assassin taught the Paladin some brutal truths about life. It also lost him the powers that came with being a Paladin as he became more and more like the man that he was tracking.

Unfortunately, this campaigne was never finished. However, Calamar was such a fun, memorable character to play that have made him the main character in a novel and I use him for other things, such as this blog.

Fav quote:

"Go ahead, try your worst!"

"I plan to."



Void: Prototype Cybernetic Search and Destroy. Played with Cyberpunk.

Void is a little over seven feet tall and weighs close to 400 lbs. He has a humanoid body that resembles a cat walking on it's hind legs. His brain and spine are still human, but that's it. He is comfortable walking on two legs or four and he has a prehensile tail.

His claws are actually grappeling hooks that he can shoot our individually. The end of his tail flowers open exposing the barrel of a gun. A favorite trick of his is to stab someone with his tail, open the gun and fire it while it's still inside the person.

His name is Void because he has absolutely no memory of his former self. During the course of the game he would have started remembering things, using dreams and flashbacks. He had a love interest in his past, but that is all that I gave the GM.

Unfortunately the GM wasn't very good and couldn't control the group. The group as a whole sucked, there was only one other player there worth his salt.

The game went nowhere for a few months and shut down. This was about eight years ago.

"I have recently acquired a new gun. Do you want it?"

"Whoa! Where'd you get this?"

"A police officer."

"Cops don't give people guns..."

"He had no further use for it."

"What happened to...."

"His death was most satisfactory..."




Sebastion Markone: Mentally Damaged Psionic kid. Gurps Fantasy.

There were two versions of this character that I played with the same GM. A child of 14 years and an adult. Both characters had the same past, they were just at different times.

Sebastion's mother died giving birth to him, a fact that caused his father to hate him. Sebastion also suffered from a curse called Lifebane. Anything that weighed less than a pound would die if it got within ten feet of Sebastion. This included grass, leaves, bugs, snakes, kittens, frogs and a host of other things.

Other kids picked on Sebastion because of his curse and the fact that he was small for his age. Sebastion was completely friendless growing up and had to learn to defend himself.

Sebastion's father drank to forget his wife, and beat Sebastion to punish him for killing her. One too many blows to the head unlocked a dormant psionic ability that Sebastion realized and started to use.

One night Sebastion's father accused the boy of sorcery. He had caught Sebastion practicing his new-found abilities.

The village threw him out. He was twelve.

For the past two years he has wandered. That's where the adventure picked him up.

Unfortunately, the GM for this character was, at best, sucky. He was also extremely chuavinistic. The other two players in the group were women, playing female characters. Both characters were older and more experienced than my character. For reasons known only to the GM, he hired my character as the leader of our group and left it to me to hire the girls. One of the female characters was 16 and the other was 24 years old. Imagine a fourteen year old trying to boss around someone ten years older.

"You're the people that we are looking for."

Sebastion waves his hand. "We aren't the people that you are looking for."

"These aren't the people that we are looking for."

"Let them go."

"Let them g... Wait! Seargent, I don't feel very good could you..."

"You feel fine."

"Never mind Seargent, I feel fine. Let them go."

(You could actually see the GM get ready to explode when I did this and we escaped from his carefully plotted trap ;-)




Berlioz: Mercenary. Gurps fantasy.

Berlioz is a half-elf. He has jet black hair from his father and the emerald eyes of his mother. His father was a Captain in the military. He is slightly built and small, standing 5' 7". Being a half-elf, he has aged much slower than a human would and at thirty, he looks fifteen. He is extremely intelligent and loves military history.

His father is retired and Berlioz decided to follow in his footsteps. He joined the military as infantry. He quicly bounced up to corporal due to his command presence and maturity.
He met and fell in love with a young woman who worked at a local inn as a waitress. She was an orphan and moved in with him. They got engaged and were set to marry when Berlioz' unit was shipped out to the Border Wars.

While Berlioz was gone, his Captain, a lecherous man name Stanton, approached Berlioz' girl. She turned him down and he offered her money. She turned him down again but he was very persistant. Eventually he informed her that he could command Berlioz' unit into the worst of the fighting. He informed her that it was her choice, but that the life expectancy in that area is measured in days.

While this was all going on, Berlioz' unit had reached the war. They were assigned to the worst area and suffered losses imediately. The Lt. was taken prisoner and the Seargent was killed. Berlioz led his squad of eight men in quick raids, freeing other men. Within a few days Berlioz had a small company of almost fourty men under his command, including officers.

He led an attack on the enemies main camp and captured their leader. He forced a treaty and headed back home.

Unfortunately, Berlioz arrived home just as his fiance submitted to Stanton's advances in order to insure that Berlioz gets safely transported home.

Berlioz walked in on them in the act and attacked Stanton in a furious rage. Berlioz' fiance tried seperating the two and was killed in the struggle. Berlioz was arrested and charged with her death and with the attempted murder of his commanding officer.

He was sentenced to death.

Fortunately, his men were so loyal that they stormed the prison and freed Berlioz. He has wandered for a few years, taking odd jobs as a mercenary. It was in this capacity that he met a and befreinded a small boy of thirteen named Shopan. It turns out that Shopan is the ruler of a small southern kingdom. His uncle had murdered his father and usurped the throne. Shopan had fled and was slowly working his way back.

Berlioz rescued him from his uncle, disposed of his identical twin brother and those nobles who had known and supported the plot. Shopan rewarded Berlioz by making him a General and ordering him to design and train a special type of warrior who would be able to do anything from assassination, to hostage rescue, beach landing, ship to ship combat, spy work, or anything else that was needed.

Berlioz made up and headed the Black Dragons. Basically a fantasy special forces company. It was cool.

"Give me a sword and I'll leave you lying in a crimson pool of your own hearts blood."



Hung So Lo: A Chinese Triad Muscle/Mage for Shadowrun.

So Lo Hung, or Hung So Lo if you pronounce his name as the Chinese do with the last name first, was born in China and raised in the American city of Seattle. He is very polite and good at martial arts. He is extremely new to actually doing anything in the world as he has spent his whole life in training. But he's eager to learn.

"I apologize if my name has distracted you or somehow brought you some amusement. I am simply here to help a friend."



I have two other Shadowrun characters that I love. I can't remember their names right now, I'll write morwe on them later.

That's all of the characters that I could think of off the top of my head. But like I said, I've been playing for 15 years now.