My Little Hobgoblin

I don't know when it happened. I would like to start with a dark and stormy night, the wind howling in my ear, as if to warn me of the impending doom. But the truth of the matter is that it just happened. One day, I was a master of my realm, the world spread out before me as kingdoms for the conquering. I traveled the breadth of the realm, had many adventures, smote down many a terrible beast. And then there it was; a small, pathetic creature cast down by so many others, not worthy to be recognized. And yet I could not bring myself to cast it aside. It must have been no more than five years, and it sat upon its stony perch with a toothy smile. Even when it smiled, it let out a low pitiful whine, having been abandoned by its own father at such a young age. Perhaps it was the baleful eyes, the slight whimpering when I drew near, but I wrapped the small hobgoblin in my coat and carried it away with me. Her ears switched, her face was marred and smiled that toothy smile and whined... and then she fucking bit me.

I sneaked her into my home in the dead of night. Feeding her and attempting to bond with creature. My wife took to her like any mother to an abandoned child; I found myself scolded for not providing for my little Turdlewhine. Hobgoblins are normally a nasty, dirty species, abhorrent to water. Turdlewhine was no different, she hated bathing and fought against it tooth and nail. Her cunning was readily apparent, pretending to bath by wetting her greasy hair and ignoring the earthen filth she had managed to attract. Getting her to brush her teeth was no easy task either. She had, what I call shingletooth, where one tooth overlapped another in a row. Only her tusks straight and all of teeth were coated with visible yellow film that I had an urge to scratch off. That is, if I knew it wouldn't get me deathly ill. Hobgoblins have a hearty kind of constitution that allowed them to eat anything off the ground without fear of getting ill. I tried to teach her that it wasn't proper to eat of the ground and would slap things out of her hand. Turdlewhine would kick the shit out of my ankle, or bite me behind the thigh until I cursed so loud, we had to leave for fear of the authorities hunting us down.

And thus began my downward spiral into the hobgoblin world. Some say there is still hope for me, but I have searched on-line, I have texted my friends and family, I have sought wizened sages that have traveled before me, and they have all told me the same answer...

 Never, ever let a fucking hobgoblin into your life.

Tabletop Withdrawals

You know you're going through withdrawals when you outfit your console game adventuring party to look like an order of adventurers in a tabletop RPG.

The Evils of Video Gaming

I haven't been putting much work into my game. My thoughts have been distracted by video games of late. In particular Dragon's Dogma. Hopefully I will get back into it soon, but in the meantime, here's a shot from the game.

Finding a Path to Earthdawn

I have not been active in the Earthdawn community of late, but I still get the occasional update to happenings at Redbrick. I got a message today that ED has been released for pathfinder. I am torn on this news even more than release in the Savage Worlds system. I can go back many years when I attempted to port Earthdawn into 3.5 in order to make it more digestable to D&D players. I am an old school D&D player, having settled on prefer AD&D 2nd edition above all others and falling in love with the Earthdawn setting when I first discovered it. Some of my old players remember that short lived debacle in what they call "DungeonDawn".

The main downfall of the attempt is that the 3.5 setting, while easily ported to, lost all the charm and nuances of the Earthdawn mechanics. We had players raise one talent above all others so it vastly outweighed others of the same circle, this lead to some unique exchanges in social situations that was quite enjoyable. Another example is karma; karma was often a deciding factor in combat situations and not easily reproduced in D&D. We attempted to implement a D6 karma rule in 'DungeonDawn' seemed unbalancing due to the fixed nature of the D20. Finally there was some difficulty with social interaction in the D20 system. In D&D it is a contested roll between two skills where the higher roll wins. In Earthdawn, you have a social defense that comes into play and you have more of combat-like social interaction. While not the most elegant method, overall the effects were more enjoyable the than D&D <winning smile to prove my point>.

All in all, I am happy that Earthdawn is available to all players, but disheartened that those players will not experience Earthdawn in what I feel is a better experience in its own sake.

Writing Update

Greetings Wastelanders,

I made some good progress on the rules this last month. Unfortunately, I’m not as far along as I had hoped and the rules themselves seem to expand as I write them. That being said, I have a good outline on the rules.

The good news is that I have already finished much of what is planned for June so I should be able to focus
some time on completing the rules.

I will endeavor to keep the updates at least weekly, but I make no guarantees.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning™ Review

I have recently completed 38 Studios' premier fantasy console RPG 'Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning™' and I am quite disappointed in the turn of events that has befallen 38 Studios. To qualify this review, I should state that I do not normally buy my games new. This was an exception as I had been waiting for it since I heard about it on Obsidian Portal's interview with R.A. Salvatore. So my wife picked it up for me the first Friday after the game released and I played it quite extensively, much to my wife's chagrin.

The main thing that drew me to the game was R.A. Salvatore writing for the game. Salvatore has been one of my favorite authors since the Icewind Dale Trilogy and world of Amalur did not disappoint. They were multiple storyline interwoven with the main character's story line that it was difficult to keep everything straight. Amalur is probably one of the richest and compelling worlds that I have found in  a while. The only down side was that you could only be a human or elf (called the dokkalfar and ljosafar). The use of Norse terminology was also very well done in the game. Gnomes are very prevalent in game, but are not a playable race.

The scenery in the game was amazing and I contribute this to Todd McFarlane the art director. Many said that McFarlane had been too removed from artwork to be very innovative, but the sweeping landscapes from forests to swamps to deserts and even the alien looking landscape if the Tuatha (winter Fae) are all awe inspiring. My favorite being Webwood, a forest inhabited by giant spiders. Seeing horse carts suspended twenty feet in the air by webs while the sun shone through the trees' canopies another hundred feet up was extremely satisfying.

The final name I would drop is Ken Rolston; he was the lead designer for Morrowind and Oblivion. This also and mixed result to a lot of people, but I feel it added to the grandness of the game. I truly feel as if the I started in a remote section of the world and slowly made my way into the epic fight between the mortal races and the immortal fae. The world is not as open as skyrim or fallout, meaning you can't just pick a direction and walk till you hit the end of the map. The areas are funneled in to each other. I found that annoying at first, but the areas themselves are well thought out and I may have missed it all together if they didn't display it on the mini-map.

The disappointment at the end of the game was in the finality of the game. While you are still allowed to continue and complete any side quests you may have missed; the game just feels over. If you have been following 38 Studios, they were planning on putting out an MMO based in Amalur. If you look at the world map, the game Reckoning was set in a little sliver of the world of Amalur.

 

Alas, it does not seem so and 38 Studios may close their doors for good. If you would like to read about what has happened there is a good article called '38 Studios' Downfall' at Gamasutra. So not only is the game finished, but future projects as well.

IGN gave the game a 9 while Game Informer rate the game in the '7's because it did not bring anything new to the industry. I have to side with IGN, Reckoning was just the tip of an Iceberg and I think that if I run a fantasy game again, I will base it in the world of Amalur.

The Great Cataclysmic Event

So recently I have come to the point that I must debate the Great Cataclysm, The Sundering of the World, The Descent into the Long Night, the blah, blah, blah, blech! This is not a particularly relishing topic as I am not the most innovative person. I can draw from a well of other person’s work and spin an originally memorizing tale of folly and deceit, or so I am told. But I lack the oh so crucial spark to start the process. Sometimes I get lucky, but more often I draw from other sources.

I believe I have come up with an original idea for a post apocalyptic game, at least I am unaware of another using the same concept. Unfortunately, I am not willing to let the cat out of the bag just yet. I picked up my copy of D20 Modern Apocalypse, and realized that my setting has many of the aspects of the cataclysmic events from which the sources lists.

• Alien Invasion – Aliens invade and become trapped in a mutual self destruction. My game has a specie of questionable origin and some suspect of alien origin; I confirm nor deny anything at this juncture.
• Biological Disaster – Yes, I tap into pandemic virus craze that crops up in hollywood every few years. I am even toying with the zombie virus concept, mainly because zombies are awesome. I of course have my own twist on the concept.
• Environmental Cataclysm – This an event where nature changes and makes it impossible for humans to survive as is. Think polar caps melting and creating “Waterworld”; mother nature tries to correct the pollution man creates and the world super freezes like “The Day After Tomorrow”, or the center of the earth stops spinning, jacking with the weather of the world in “The Core”. While my game does have environmental change, it happens along side of the apocalypse, possibly exacerbating the process, but not causing it.
• Asteroid Strike – “Armageddon”, “Deep Impact”, “Meteor Apocalypse”, “Rage”, hopefully you get the picture. Big rock hits the earth, makes life hard. This one isn’t in my game, but it makes for a good story as to why humans create facilities to prepare for the apocalypse.
• Judgement Day – Not “Terminator” style Judgement Day, but in a biblical sense. A hundred million Mephistopheles erupt from the bowels of the world and do battle with the ascended and we poor souls left in the ravaged wake eek out survival. I find it ironic that I have no interest in creating an apocalyptic biblical setting, but I am not adverse to an apocalyptic Ragnarok setting which are both theological.
• Nuclear Armageddon - I find it hard to relate the post apocalyptic genre without Nuclear events. I find the gas-mask, radiation, wasteland looking environment to be a staple of a good post-apocalyptic piece. I believe Fallout is such a huge success because it brings that “Apoclyptia” to us in such a genuine format.
• Rise of the Machines – “The Matix”, “Terminator”, “I, Robot”; these movies help define the human vs robot apocalyptic future. While I like these movies and their concept, I do not use them in my setting.
• Rogue Planet – I found this scenario to be the most interesting, at first I found it to be a wonderfully original idea to me, but then I remembered one of my favorite childhood cartoons and this can be paralleled to “Thundarr the Barbarian”. I like the idea, but feel it does not fit with what I am going for.
• Supernatural Invasion – I find this along the lines of the Judgement Day scenario, but does not have to be religious in nature. I prefer to have my Apocalyptia rooted in science more than fantasy/horror though.

Well there you have it, D20′s reasons behind an apocalyptic future. My questions to you is, which one (or ones) do you find interesting for a setting? Will it effect my overall choice in the reasoning of my game? Perhaps, since the game is designed with others in mind,  I like to hear other’s opinion on the topic.