We had a fantastic summer evening a few weeks ago and I. took Megan out to the Planetarium down in the city for a quick look at the city lights and to get some ice cream.
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A few weeks ago I sold my Dirtywave M8 to free up some funds and get an Akai MPC One. The Dirtywave was not jelling with me and I think my days as a tracker users have come and gone. I had the M8 for maybe a year and I was not able to really get anything productive out of it. Now, don't get me wrong, it is a super impressive piece of hardware, the workflow just wasn't quite working for me.
I've had my eye on picking up an MPC for years. It is after all a fairly iconic piece of music equipment in its various iterations. An updated version of the One+ was release a few months ago and at a reasonable price of around $700 I figured this might be my opportunity time to jump into the MPC world.
So far, I have to say that I am really digging the MPC. The sounds alone that came with it or that are available on Akai's website are impressive and pretty deep. There is a lot right out of the gate that can get you going with music. It is apparent though that many of the sounds are hiphop oriented and you can also tell from the legacy of the device how the sort of 80-115 BMP slow groove that comes from sampling exists. The sound libraries reenforce that and the sampling tools sort of reinforce that as well. I am super curious to see what sort of music I make on this device, because while you can certainly make "techno" or dance music, the vibe I get just seems a bit slower tempo.
I am really taking this opportunity with the MPC to dig into the sampling, which is an area of music production I have never been proficient in. The One+ does have some synth plugins, but it appears that the CPU resources are fairly limited, and as I mentioned above, the pedigree just leans into that sampling world. You can see that right on the way the interface is designed, where "Sampler" and "Sample" edit or very prominently labeled on the front panel.
I am working through the Akai Youtube channels introduction series and that is affording a pretty good intro on how the MPC works. It does have a bit of a learning curve, especially as someone who has now 20 years of using other groove boxes. Akai likes to use their own terminology for things. For example "quantization" is called "Time Control" or TC. Projects are broken down into Sequences, Tracks and then Programs. The Sequence is sort of how you would think of Patterns on other machines where you can have multiple tracks loaded into a sequence. Programs are basically the synth preset or drum kit that are loaded into a track.
As far as I can tell the MPC also does not have a linear tracking song mode, as you might find in a traditional DAW or some other workstations. It seems in this respect it does follow the sort of traditional "tracker" style sequencing methodology where you can take your sequences (i.e. Sequence 1, Sequence 2, etc.) and then place them in an order you like to be triggered. You aren't sequencing the individual tracks.
There are a couple of other really interesting features that I hope to dig into more. As one might expect the sampling features are very deep. There is some very impressive tools here that instantly make my realize why this is such a well regarded sampler. It even has a feature where you can trigger a synth via midi to play through a series of notes that can be recorded into the machine as a multi-sample. That sounds fantastic as I can see myself sampling my Command Station. I hope that importing a series of samples already setup as a multi-sampled instrument is just as simple.
So despite the machine itself being pretty fantastic, there are a handful of frustrations with the MPC that I have experienced so far. The first is the pads themselves. They are incredibly firm and have no "give" to them. I'm not sure if this how all MPC's are, but I was expecting something closer to the pads on my Command Station, so there is a bit of adjustment that needs to occur there.
The second issue largely comes down to the product support. The MPC ships without a manual of any sort and to make matters even more frustration the .PDF manual that is online covers all of the products in the currently MPC line (One, Live, X) so moving through it to learn the product is a tedious endeavor. The sample libraries offered from Akai's website also are tied into the MPC Software which you install onto your computer. Looking through Reddit it does appear that there are ways to get around installing all of this software, but Akai intentionally makes it obtuse, utilizing .pkg installer files for the samples. Adding insult to injury on that front, the MPC Software and associated samples cannot be installed onto an external HDD, they are installed onto your computers main's HDD, which I resume most musicians don't do.
Overall though a real nice piece of kit that I am enjoying and I anticipate utilizing quite a bit over the coming months.
We left off from our last session with the party trying to decide on their next steps. Having made a positive contact with Breylor, they obtained a key to the church and the name of an insider at Aces & Tails called Sanmoor, along with a bottle of poison to be used for either target.
We completed out latest session of Cairn this past Friday, and it was perhaps the most interesting session we have played to date. There were no dice rolls at all during this session. It was all role-play. Some players definitely enjoyed this, but I could tell that some others did not care for the session as much.
So, as my latest creative experiment I have decided to give my hand a go at developing an RPG system. I don't anticipate creating anything truly groundbreaking, but I figured it would be a fun experiment to explore the development process and explore different concepts in RPG's.
I have setup a Github site to track the documents as I write them out and I think I'll share those in the coming weeks along with a new development blog as soon as I get a little bit further along in the process. But for now, let's go ahead and share the design concept that I have put together so far for this thought experiment.
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Beyond the Torchlight is a simple RPG system that is intended to be transferable across settings, with the intent to make a system that can be played in both fantasy, modern or futuristic settings. It will be focused around a West Marches style gameplay and will allow for tools to build a town and branching adventures from that town.
It's been a few weeks since I have posted an update to our Friday's with Cairn report. Our group has actually played I think three sessions since my last posting and there has been some interesting developments along the way. Let's take a look at how that has been going.
After leaving the Kobold lair and successfully gaining information on the location of the goblins in the Old Island Fortress, our group continued north making their way into in a meeting or war room. The room was damp and featured significant decay to a large table in the center of the room. Cybil stumbled across a pit trip on the inside of this room adjacent to the wet door, which lead back out to the main entrance hallway. She luckily succeeded on her Dex saving throw and was able to avoid damage.
While exploring the room the party observed that there were doors at all four compass points. All of them were of the same construction and opened into this room except the eastern door, which appear to be made of much better construction and with a different iron hinge. That opened into another room to the east (Room 13) which was a storage room for various treasures. This storage room did not have the water damage that the war room had, and in fact had a significant layer of very fine dust, so much so that it kicked up into the air just from the motion of the door opening.
Cwingwald suggested that the party close the door behind them when entering this room, but the rest of the party disagreed. Thankful that they did, because once the party stepped into the room with their torch, they kicked up dust that lit into a significant fireball. Several members failed their saves and took fire damage, while a few other were able to dive back out into the War Room. They quickly closed the door behind them and unfortunately the treasures inside were burned in the resulting fire.
After briefly recovering the party continued north to a long an angled hall filled with columns. In the center of this room was a large statute decorated similar to a Greek solider with a shield and spear pointed down towards a large iron chest on the floor. The face of the statute was damaged and broken on the floor.
Canhoreal had a lock pick set and attempted to pick the lock on the chest. Upon his attempt the spear of the soldier shot down and gave him piercing damage. The party approached the chest from the sides and were able to rotate it 90 degrees to get it out of the line of the spear and upon opening it found several precious stones in addition to some gold.
Continuing through the dungeon the party finally came across the goblins in question. They laid a bear trap in the hallway and enticed the goblins into the hallway and an ambush. They were successful in doing so, but the battle was hard won. During the melee, both Canhoreal and Beatrice went down after failing a Str save, but having Str remaining. Once the goblins were successfully dispatched the party had to make some decisions. They quickly decided that they needed to get out of the fort if they were to have any chance of saving either Canhoreal's or Beatrice's life. They broke off a couple of rotting boards from the table in the war room to use a stretchers and four party members quickly carried the two injured parties out to try and get back to the farmer's place as quickly as possible. The remaining party members took stock of their remaining provisions and followed behind a few moments later.
They thankfully passed their encounters check, but I required both Canhoreal and Beatrice to continue to roll strength saves, once per hour by reducing their remaining Str by 1d4 per hour. Should they reach 0 Str they would be dead.
The party moved as quickly as they could, each making Dex saves again when crossing the river in the canoe, but in the end Beatrice unfortunately did not make it. Canhoreal was able to survive taking a Sundering wound as a result of the combat as well.
The party decided to take stock of their endeavors to date, twice having to escape from the fortress with their lives barely in tact, but without the sword which they were originally striving to obtain. They acquired a decent sum of money and several treasure items that they did have the opportunity to sell.
Running low on provisions they made the decision to retire to Morgansfort and re-assess. They held a brief water funeral for Beatrice and then divided up her possessions amongst the group before making their way back.
Once back at Morgansfort the party decided to part ways with Wenlan and 2Can and pursue other interests. They were informed that there was a town north of Morgansfort called Firston, which would be a place that they could sell their treasures and possibly find other employment. Morgansfort itself was happy to purchase the weapons and armor from Beatrice, but did not have the means to purchase the treasure items.
Before their departure Wenlan sent off the party with a warm farewell and informed them that he was going to attempt the Olde Fort once again. Should the party want to look him up in the future, he was going to venture west of Firston into the wilderness, and he extended himself as a positive friend and relation to the party in the future.
Heading out on the road back to Firston the party was traveling on a relatively path, however, no road is truly safe on the wilderness edge of the Urd Empire. The first half of their journey was without incident, but light rain persisted throughout the day. Late in the afternoon the party came across their first obstacle, which was a Wood Troll feeding on a deer it caught along the road. The road at this location was fairly clear on either side with approximately 1/4 mile of grassland on either side and the ocean to the east and the woods to the west. The party elected to avoid the Troll entirely and spent an additional couple of hours moving through the grassland off the road to avoid the troll. The party rolled a "Group" Dex save to see if they could get past the Troll without notice and every member of the party succeeded.
That evening while setting up camp, most of the party members chose to sleep in their backpacks to avoid the wet ground and the consequences of that action. Their treasures were therefore piled under one of their wagons. The treasure attracted the attention of a Boggart who wanted to get its hands on some of their "shiny and glittery". Cybil deftly negotiated with the Boggart and even caught it in a foot race due to some excellent manipulation by tossing a silver coin at the creature. Upon capture she made the Boggart promise to not bother them the remainder of that night and they received its word.
The next morning the party arrived at Firston and quickly decided to sell their treasure items and dive up the treasure amongst themselves. Cybil decided she was to retire from adventuring, making just over 100 gold total and the party had an opportunity to meet their two new companions.
Gruid came to replace Cybil and is a local of Firston. Known as a loafer, he is a "has been" ranger who now mostly spends his time as a local beggar, well past his best days. He quickly tried to approach the party, seeing they enter Firston from the Morgransfort road, which is an unusual occurrence.
Boroth is also a Firston native and a known gambler who is habitually down on their luck.
The party decided to split up for the day to take care of individual business.
Ysln, Arjune and Chere went to the local church. Ysln if a cleric of the church and wanted to sell a scroll of "Raise Spirit", which the church happily paid for. The local cleric, known as Brother Oldeman was impressed with the acquisition of the scroll and gave a very ornate business card to Ysln, informing her that the church would have other business for her if she was interested. The Church of Tah is a corrupt and opulent church of the empire, known for stealing relics and other ancient artifacts.
Arjune and Chere are both members of the Church of Tah Reformed, and were not pleased with Ysln's interactions with the Brother of the church.
Gruid was able to ingratiate himself with the party by informing them of a local retired ranger and wealthy individual who is looking for some one to hunt down a two headed bear. Gruid is one of the few people who has ever seen the bear and survived informed the party they could meet the mysterious Breglelor Shunderman tomorrow.
Canhoreal decided to visit a local gambling house known as Aces and Tails. Upon entering during the day, he found a very upscale establishment with numerous gambling and gaming tables on the ground floor and a restaurant. The second floor of the building featured a smoking and reading room frequented by "Gentlemen" of the city and was well known for its opulent glass atrium style ceiling.
Canhoreal entered the establishment with his full adventuring gear still on, marking a distinct contract to the high society and well dressed patrons in the rest of the building. He was approached by a Mr. Stillman, the operator of Aces & Tails and local underboss enforced who noted Canhoreal's dress.
He informed Canhoreal that his boss and owner of the establishment had the need of an outside party to take care of a problem should they be interested. He informed Canhoreal and his companions to return later that evening if they were interested. Boroth, who frequents the establishment was able to inform Canhoreal to be care of the proposal, but noted that there was potentially a lot of be gained. The Aces & Tails was run by the Brindlewood family and they were well known as the head of the local crime syndicate.
And that is where we left our last session. The party will reconvene later in the evening to share their propositions and explore what options they have before them.
We left off our last session with our party opening a secret door only to find themselves confront with five orcs in a lit room. The interaction devolved into combat and resulted in two of the Orcs going down and the remaining three running out of the room into the hallway to the ast. Our party, who took a decent amount of damage decided to backoff and re-group.
They piled the two dead bodies in front of the east door to provided a bit of a barricade and they then took a quick ten-minute rest. After considering their options our party decided to head back down the secret entrance and they investigated the previously unexplored tunnel to the west towards.
This Brough them to Room 16, which exhibited a new exit from the dungeon that is partially collapsed and veered with dirt. They once again found themselves face with a potential wolf den to get past to get to the entrance. The party decided to chop off the arm from one of the dead Orc bodies and threw that to the wolves as a distraction. The wolves ended up fighting over the arm and the party was able to exit the first level of the dungeon.
They took this opportunity to head back to the farmer's house to spend a night and rest since Cybil was in very poor shape. With an additional piece of gold the farmer allowed Cybil to sleep in his bed and she was able to regain here Strength, while the rest of the party slept outside.
There was consideration if the group should take the half day journey back to the Morgansfort and restock, but the fact that some of the old fort is now cleared out and people from the fort know that the were headed there, it became apparent that other treasure seekers may try to take advantage of our party's hard work and they instead decided to dive back in.
The next morning our party once again headed back to the dungeon main entrance and this time decided to head south (whereas they previously headed west). They found a pit trap in this southern hallway and discovered a switch on the far side of the trap. They disabled it with a crack crossbow shot and continued their exploration to the south.
It was at this same time that the party decided to wonder whether they should've offloaded some of their treasure either with the farmer or back at the cave entrance. They decided to continue on.
As the group continued they came across another room filled with the sound of buzzing. They discovered a nest of giant bees in this room. While the bees were clearly aggressive the party decided to sprint past this room and continue further down the hallway and found that the bees did not pursue them past 60'.
Continuing on our party discovered the Kobold Lair. Because of their positive interaction earlier with the Kobold patrol earlier they were met with a generally positive attitude. They were able to continue to convince the Kobolds that they were here to hunt Goblins and were given a scroll of "knock" and informed that the Goblin lair was located in the northwest area of the current dungeon level.
And that is where we ended session 3.
Our Friday group completed our second session of playing Cairn and we had an opportunity to finally get into some dungeon delving and some combat.
Our group had our session 1 this past Friday, or I should say perhaps session 0.5 since it appears that half of my table didn't fully fill out their character sheets or somehow forgot a stat or two. So after about 45 minutes of doing that again we finally got started in Morgansfort.
Here are the names of the players we rolled up.
For those that might be interested in running the module, it essentially is a fort placed on the edge of the “Western Lands” which are part of the former Urd Empire. The fort is placed right near the edge of civilization which allows for plenty of opportunity to engage in the wilderness. It features three dungeons to explore along with general wilderness areas. The module has a nice bit of information (2-3 pages) that provides enough background information for GMs to give their players a sense of place, but not so much that one can’t easily modify or adapt it to their own setting or needs. A nice summary is provided right on page 1 of the three dungeons and the fort.
There is also a really detailed bit of information of the world’s religions and the fort itself, including details on all of the buildings and numerous NPC’s within the fort.
Our group had two characters randomly roll up clerics as backgrounds so they took an interest in the religion information in the Morgansfort module. I won't write it all out here, but here is a brief summary.
The Hundred Gods: Basically the old world religion. Hundreds of gods from the existing inhabitants of this region. I positioned this that most of the denizens outside of the fort, and under its protection followed this religion.
Arjune from our play group took to the Church of Tah reformed and had in their background “Discredited”. They played to that nicely, indicating that they had to escape to the wilderness to avoid that discredit to their name.
When our players arrived at the fort, I directed them to “The Toothless Dragon Tavern” and to the “Iron Helm Inn” for their rumors. Per the module direction they immediately began a conversation with “Bat” who I made as a toothless old koot of a farmer, who gave them the initial rumor for the first dungeon, which was an abandoned ancient fort.
Cybil was the one who took some initiative to try and find out about other rumors or to find a hireling to go with the party. I used the random character generator on the Cairn website and came up with a ridiculously good character who had stats well above our players and a background to boot named Wenlan. Stats below:
Wenlan Candlewick, formerly a ranger. You have a lanky physique, weathered skin, oily hair, and a rat-like face. You speak in a gravelly manner and wear rancid clothing. You are rude yet serene, and are generally regarded as an entertainer.
You have had the misfortune of being defrauded. You are 35 years old.
Attributes
HP: 4
Armor: 2
STR: 12
DEX: 13
WIL: 17
Equipment
Armor: Brigandine (1 Armor, bulky), a Helmet (+1 Armor)
Weapon: Crossbow (bulky)
Gear, tools & trinkets: Nails (stacks), Cart (+4 slots, bulky), and Bottle
Bonus item: Longbow (bulky)
Starting supplies: 8 gold, a Torch, and three days' Rations
As someone who is trying to dip my toe into OSR gaming right now, I have been having quite a few conversations online about the style of play and the general community that surrounds that style of play.
While doing my research and prep I have observed what I think is a disconnect between what many think OSR is (or should be) vs a modern 5e system. So what does OSR mean? OSR is Old School Revival (or Renaissance) which bases the D&D game on the early D&D editions. I have spent quite a bit of time over on r/OSR and on Discord to facilitate my discussions on how to structure a game. I came into this process thinking that OSR = Rules Lite = narrative forward design. Many of the OSR systems I have seen tend to pull back a lot of the rules and complexity that modern 5e has. I think the assumption that OSR is narrative focused is incorrect based upon the feedback I hear from the community. Ironically, it almost seems like the OSR community wants more tactical, more grit, more number crunching for battle with out-of-encounter RP to get out of the way. That seems counterintuitive to me when you are pulling away the more complex math and skills you might find in PF2e for example.
I wanted to take a break from 5e with my group because I feel like I am getting burned out on the load of prep that is expected of the DM. Im spending hours each week to prepare maps, NPC's, encounters, etc and my players just roll up to the table. Now my group is pretty evenly split on the role-play vs tactical battle divide of how they play 5e.
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Following up on my blog post from a couple of weeks ago, I have been doing some research into various RPG systems that I would like to play. Some of those purchases and inquiries are starting to come to fruition and there has been one system that has really caught my eye.
Cairn is a New School Revival system, which if I am being honest, I don't know exactly what that means. The term is used online often in conjunction with the Old School Revival (OSR) terminology, which references the D&D methods and designs from the early eighties. I'll talk about that more in another post, but I wanted to highlight a bit of what has caught my eye with Cairn. I'll be summarizing a bit on my interpretation, so this may not entirely be the designer's intent with the system design.
"Cairn is an adventure game about exploring a dark & mysterious wood filled with strange folk, hidden treasure, and unspeakable monstrosities. Character generation is quick and random, classless, and relies on fictional advancement rather than level mechanics.
It is based on Knave by Ben Milton and Into The Odd by Chris McDowall. The game was written by Yochai Gal."
The entire rules set is about 24 pages and can be downloaded over at cairnrpg.com. There is some very nice design aesthetic as well around the character sheet and pamphlet.
One of the key things I would like to try and do with Cairn is to explore some of the tropes and mechanics that D&D 5e either falls short on or that our play group has not explored. For the purposes of my planning, I have solidified around three main concepts that I would like to explore with Cairn.
This would be my first time running a system like this, so I am hoping to build the campaign around an adaptation of "The Lost Citadel" by Green Ronin Publishing. I am hoping that the concept of a single, last human city will help to facilitate this campaign style since the adventurers will have to head out into the wilderness and try to make their way back. Adventuring further from the city can result in increased risk and increased reward.
Cairn has a lot of nice hacks built by the community to further some of the dungeon and hex crawl mechanics. I think that would be really fun to dig into an explore as a core component of the campaign.
If you are not in the tabletop gaming world, you may not have heard about the controversy surrounding Dungeons & Dragons for the past couple of weeks. In short, Hasbro, who owns Wizards of the Coast (WOTC), who make D&D had leaked an update to their gaming license that would've imposted some severe restrictions upon content creators, 3rd party publishers and pretty much anyone who did anything creative within the D&D world. What is/was known as the Open Gaming License 1.0a (OGL) has been around for around 20 years. This licenses allows content creators to create content in and around D&D without imposing upon WOTC's copyright or trademark. For example, you wouldn't be able to call your book a D&D book, but you could say something along the lines of "it is 5e compatible and has these new monsters I created".
This all got into a big mess when WOTC had their new OGL leaked. There were many problems with it, but most notably it appeared to revoke the previous license, implied that WOTC could claim the rights to creator's work and required creators making more than $750,000 annually to pay ~25% royalty. It was a shit show to put it mildly.
Gizmodo broke the story and it put the fandom into a maelstrom as WOTC failed to repond. When they finally did, nearly two weeks later, the community was not pleased.
As result, multiple companies in the TTRPG industry have now struck out on their own to avoid any potential issues like this in the future. The backlash to WOTC has been so strong and so swift that they have essentially now created more competition in the market against themselves. Kobold Press has announced that they are making their own RPG system, code named Project Black Flag, which will likely be a 5e compatible system (aka 5.5). MCDM productions announced their new system and Paizo has announced they are leading and effort with multiple other publishers to create a truly open gaming license to be called ORC that can be applied to any gaming license.
On top of that the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Cory Doctrow have chimed in with numerous other sites detailing how the original OGL was not even needed and how it even restricted some rights which might be inherent.
In the end it has been quite a disaster.
At this point I don't intend to stop playing D&D, but I think this might be an opportune time for our group to take a look at some other RPG systems and try those out for 2023. Paizo has put many of their books one sale this week to encourage some different play.
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While folding laundry this morning I had a minor epiphany that subsequently lead to a resigned sigh. (The picture by the way doesn't really have anything to do with this post beyond the observation that the ends of this towel have apparently shrunk). For those that know me, you know that I absolutely dread folding the laundry. It is like the bane of my existence and despite all that I found myself folding laundry this morning quite contently, in addition to doing some other minor house chores.
For the past week I have been off work on holiday and despite the sort of rush of the holiday and family, and friends, I mentally finally have had a chance to sort of catch up with the rest of my life. I even had a chance to enjoy some Netflix, even work on some music. The whole "Fight or Flight" rush of my life had an opportunity to just simmer down and I didn't feel like I had a mountain of horses and other personal items backing up, or at least I didn't feel like I had an urgency to get those things done before the week ended. And I think because of that I was able to fold some laundry today, for an hour or so and not feel any stress about it at all. I didn't have anything else specifically on my list that needed to get done.
With the end of the holiday looming and work coming back up tomorrow though I can feel the sense of anxiety already begin to creep into the back of my mind. Right off the bat I have a meeting tomorrow morning to kick the year off.
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This past week I have been knocked out of commission due to a nasty head cold. I unfortunately have never been able to "nap" so I have be stuck on the couch, cleaning up work emails and trying to find something else to pass the time. Too tired to read or engage my brain in any real creative activity I decided to give the recent Gamepass release Pentiment a go, and boy did it hit the right spot at the right time.
Pentiment is a text based murder mystery game focused around 16th century Bavaria, the Catholic Church, and the Holy Roman Empire. The adventure takes place in the town of Tassing where you have to first investigate a murder at the local abbey. The murder mystery has you as the main character going around the town, looking for clues and interviewing people in the town. All standard "your choice affects the world and people" stuff we have seen in many games.
What really sets Pentiment apart though is the atmosphere. First the game's art style is a wonderful hand drawn and there is almost no music in the game, with the exception of two notable instances in my play through. It came to be incredibly relaxing while laying on the couch sick.
The other thing that really caught me about this game is how it built this sense of family and community. The game is really about the people and the families of Tassing. There are three acts in the game that take place over twenty years and through each act you see families grow, some members pass away, and others get married to each other. It was touching and it really grounded me to the characters to see where they have come and where they were going. Finding out that someone from the first act had passed away really struck me emotionally as I needed to delicately navigate how to inquire about the circumstances of what happened the seven years I was gone.
This was the late 1500's after all and times were tough. Political and religious struggle was bounded by the plague and class warfare and that is reflected in this game. It all came together though in the third act as the game culminates on Christmas Eve. All of your choices an all of the lives of the characters in the game come together on the Christmas Eve celebration at the local inn. All of the townspeople are there and there is this brilliant moment of cultural community that is brought together that just really touched me from a storytelling perspective. That pure sense of community and despite all of the hardships and tragedy that have occurred to the characters in this game, they all soldiered through it together, as a community.
The game can be a bit hard though to get invested in, especially if you aren't prepared for the amount of text you need to parse through. Additionally, there is a beautiful element many of the character's text in the game is different based upon their profession. For example, the monks at the monastery have text bubbles in a gothic font. The local printer has his family's text in a print font. This is a great touch, but can be a bit hard to read at times. Thankfully, there is a "simple font" option for those who want to turn it on, but the game does lose a bit of charm there.
Also, the other minor fault in the narrative flow is that the game doesn't always give you a good indication of how much interaction and time you have between the scenes. There were multiple instances where I could have interviewed more people, but didn't realize my current interaction was going to progress forward the clock. That was not telegraphed very well early on.
Overall though, such a wonderful and touching game and I think I might play it again to see how the story changes with different dialog choices and different interactions. Check it out if you are looking for a nice, slow paced game.
It just occurred to me that, after switching phones this past fall that I never actually posted all of the highlights from our big motorcycle trip this past fall with the MEWS crew. If I am being honest, I did not journal the trip this year, so instead I'll just go ahead and share the GPS data, photos and videos.
Megan took me out this past Saturday for my 40th birthday, so let's take a look.
The afternoon started off by hitting up the Starbucks Reserve located on Michigan Avenue. One of six in the world it is a four story roaster selling specialty coffee and even has a bar on the fourth floor serving coffee cocktails. We arrived mid afternoon so it was incredibly busy, but we were able to grab a spot by the window and have a latte and a snack.
Next stop was to the Driehaus Museum, which was absolutely fantastic. It is located just two blocks west of Michigan Avenue at Wabash and Erie. It was super gorgeous and in immaculate condition. It took us a little over an hour to walk through the house. It is a a restored "gilded age" home owned by the Nickerson family from the late 1800's.
The final highlight of the evening though was dinner at El Che Steakhouse, where Megan book us the 10-course chef's counter. We sat right at the chef's prep kitchen in front of the open wood fire, where they cook all of the food. I'll be honest in that I can't remember exactly all of the details of the menu, but needless to say, it was delicious. Both of us though, while not sick did sleep horribly that evening as our bodies had to digest all of that super rich food and drink.
Ohh, and the outfit I wore that day? Also part of my birthday gift from Megan from Banana Republic's Heritage clothing line. Overall a wonderful birthday experience.
]]>Late into the Halloween game, but I wanted to share this adventure I wrote a few years ago and have consolidated into a proper document for other DM's to run. This takes H.P. Lovecraft's Dagon short story and turns it into an investigation adventure.
I hope you enjoy.
]]>Everyone knows about the Roe vs. Wade decision which was overturned yesterday by now. There is a planned parenthood/abortion clinic near my house that we routinely drive by if Megan and I are doing errands or grabbing a bit to eat at Panera. Without fail there are protestors out in front of it. Even today, in the rain, after the largest anti-abortion victory in fifty years, they were out there again protesting.
Ironically, I came across this video on TikTok this morning and while I don't normally like this sort of hyperbolic rhetoric, I do feel like it aptly sums up what I seem to observe.
As I continued to drive home in the rain, it really got me thinking about the why and my mind drifted for some reason to philosophy. I have mentioned on here before who I studied political theory as my undergrad degree and there is a lot of overlap to philosophy there. Without a doubt those courses changed my entire outlook on the world and me as a person, and I grew and learned more from those courses than anything else I have ever taken. STEM has been such a large push in our world the past 20 years or so, and it just makes me think that perhaps instead of reinforcing the productive, output-driven focus of STEM education if we all might just be a little bit better off if we have some art, philosophy and music eduction to slow everything down. To teach people some contemplation an insight.
You know, in Dungeons and Dragons there are two fundamental mechanics for using your brain to solve problems. Intelligence and Wisdom. We've really been pushing that intelligence part pretty hard with STEM learning. Perhaps we need to take some time and give the Wisdom score a little bit of love.
Several years ago I posted some reading ideas for those who may want to get into Political Theory, and by proxy some philosophy. I'll re-link that post here: Matt's Reading Suggestions for Political Theory.
Additionally, this seems to be a nice list to start for many people, although any 1-2 of these will probably suffice as an introduction: 15 Best Philosophy Books for Beginners (Introductory Books to Start With)
]]>Fire light danced across the oak and marble walls of the Eluvian temple as Lireal set the candles for the evening. She has been repeating this same ritual for nearly four centuries, each evening pointedly lighting each of the one hundred and thirty-one candles in the main hall in a succinct procession. This evening however was different when there came a rapping on the front door. The other stewards in the room all paused, surprised at the sound, looks glancing from one to another. Putting down her long match Lireal glided toward the front door, the gaze of each of the stewards following her across the hall. She lifted the iron handle, pulling open the large wooden door, which lurched under its own weight.
Peering out into the town of Eglarest, Lireal’s gaze surveyed the square outside the temple. The evening air was soft and quiet. The warmth of the late summer day still clung to the white limestone buildings and the cool air from the Lavalling forest swayed through the oaks outside the city wall. The sound of the rustling wind whispered across Eglarest and Lireal saw a few men across the square finishing closing off the gate for the evening. Besides those elven men though, there was no one else to be seen.
Stepping outside Lireal looked again, confused about the knock she heard, when a weak voice caught her attention to her right.
“Mother.”
The voice was delicate, but unmistakable. Lireal’s breath caught at the sound and her hand trembled as she brought it up to her mouth.
“No, it couldn’t be. It simply cannot be," she thought to herself. The simple desire in and of itself was almost heartbreaking enough as she turned toward the voice.
Standing to the right of the door was a young elven woman with blonde hair and striking ice blue eyes. Her hair and clothes were a mess, torn and burned. The skin around her eyes held a distinct tattoo, drawn in white ink following the contours of her cheek bones up to her ears and her brow in the design of dragon scales. Her right eye was bruised and blue and dried blood ran from a fat lip which she nursed with the tip of her tongue.
Lireal’s heart skipped and then sank and the sight of her daughter Adalina. “My child!”, she exclaimed and rushed over to Adalina taking her into her arms. Adalina’s weight pressed into her as Lireal brought her hand up to brush the hair out of her daughter’s face.
“What has happened to you?”
“Mother, please I didn’t know where else to turn.”
“Quiet child, let me tend to your wounds”, replied Lireal, her instincts taking over as she directed stewards to grab water and fresh linens
“Mother, please. They are coming. I am sorry, I didn’t mean to bring them here, but they are coming,” said Adalina before she lost consciousness.
It was not until several hours later that Adalina finally awoke. Lireal was sitting at her side. In the course of a few hours Adalina’s wounds had healed remarkably fast. Her lip had reduced in swelling and the bruises across her body had all but disappeared. As she came to, she bolted up in the bed.
“No, I must leave. I must be gone before they come”.
“Ada, please. What are you talking about?”, asked Lireal. Concern and longing in her voice for the daughter she has not seen in two centuries.
Before Adalina could respond the ringing of the guard bell from the front gate chimed four times and shouts came from outside the temple. Both women arose at the sound, Lireal surprised at her daughter’s swiftness considering her injuries.
Before they could reach the front door of the temple a crash rippled through the building as the front gate to the city exploded into splinters of wood and fire. Lireal threw open the door and ran out into the square. Bodies of elven men and women of the town’s guard lay scattered across the square. An orange glow throbbed like a heartbeat from beyond the city walls as the Oak forest of Lavalling was burning. Through the gate strode Men, borne in iron armor and carrying the magic of fire in their hands. One man in particular stepped forward into the empty square.
“I am the most holy emissary of the White Cloth, come to bless and baptize this town in the name of his lord. My name is Eringas and we have tracked to this place an abomination of the rightful order. Come, bless yourselves in the name of the White Cloth.”
Lireal stepped forward raising her hand in a gesture of calming, but before she could take more than two steps, the whistle of an arrow sang through the night finding purchase. Lireal didn’t even realize what had happened before the dull punch in her chest was followed by the pooling of warm blood across her white dress. She stumbled forward another step, before falling to her knees and the hands of two stewards closed around her shoulders.
Time slowed, the sound of the world dulled to a muffle in Adalina’s ears as she watched the arrow loose from the archer’s bow across the square. With her perception of time and speed she watched in horror as the arrow stretched across the town square and bury into her mother’s chest. The weight of the impact rippled through all her senses as she darted from the door of the temple to where her mother stood, and now began to fall. With each step she took she could hear the weakening beat of her mother’s heart and could smell the fresh blood pouring from the wound.
Silver tears streaked her face as she collapsed over her mother’s body, cradling it in her arms. Each weakening heartbeat reverberated in her mind in slow agony as she listened to the final moments of her mother’s life pass before her. Centuries of time that could have been spent together lost in moments with each beat.
Lireal looked up into her daughter’s face, raising her hand to caress her daughter’s hair.
“I always hoped I would get to see you again.”
And she was gone. The last heartbeat died away in Adalina’s mind leaving behind a void of silence that would never be filled again. It was replaced with the beating of her own heart, of her own rage which she had spent so many years culling and learning to control. It rose deep from within her chest, at first only in her mind, but beat after beat growing and bursting forth in a rage and sorrow that would consume the town of Eglarest.
“Men. Men will pay. Mankind will pay for what they have done.”
]]>So my latest ADHD obsession right now is watches. I've pretty much always worn a watch in some fashion or another all the way back to high school, may be even junior high. Nothing fancy. A Fossil typically. The most recent iteration happens to be an Apple Watch, which I have had for maybe four years now. I am noticing though that I am not really utilizing all that many smart features on it and it is basically a fancy heart rate monitor. Now, don't get me wrong. I still love that and being able to track all my health data all the time is fascinating, but I feel like I want to start to get into the watch game a bit more.
James Bond was always a favorite character growing up and of course he has quite the watch game. It wasn't until last year that I realized how expensive some watches are though. Omega has always been a brand that seems to have caught my eye, but it wasn't until this past fall when I decided to look up how much an Omega Speedster costs. It is somewhere around $4,000, which if I am being honest is incomprehensibly expensive. I don't think I can justify that much money on a watch, but I suppose I would be willing to pay a few hundred dollars for one. After all I paid ~$350 for my Apple Watch.
Citizen Eco-Drive Titanium
The Citizen Eco-Drive Super Titanium has caught my eye. I think in general any watch that doesn't require a battery seems appealing as I can just sort of pop it on and go. The titanium color matches my wedding ring too and I think the style of this watch has a nice look that can be dressed up or dressed down.
Timex North Field Post Solar
Timex really catches my eye as well, especially their field watches. The Field Post Solar has that nice rugged look which I really like with the fabric band. Although I can't say that I really like how it loops. Perhaps the leather band would be the best way to go, and I have never owned a leather banded watch. It seems like it has a nice simple and clean look.
There are a few others that catch my eye as well. Some are dreams and some are something perhaps worth looking at more closely.
Megan and I attended Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC) last weekend. It was quite simply one of the most amazing experiences of my life. A rave, a festival, an art installation. It was an experience that is truly hard to describe. It took place at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway and had nine main stages that covered most genres of dance electronic music. In addition to those main stages, there were probably dozens of other artcars, sounders and other installations around the entire complex. Ohh, and it also had a carnival in the center of it.
The vibe of the entire event was something unlike I have experienced before. Almost pure positivity from the attendees and you could feel the mantra of the event Peace, Love, Unity, Respect (PLUR) throughout most of it. Of course there were minor instances where intoxicated individuals were rude, but that was mostly few and far between. It is 100% something I need to do again and the post euphoria come down this week after the event has been pretty hard to digest.
We have intentions to attend Electric Forest next summer and then go back to EDC in Spring 2023. You can find most of my photos and videos over on Instagram, but I have spliced together highlights in the video below.
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After a long, hard day of traveling the party comes across a halfing with a cart caught in the mud. He is in need of assistance to free the cart.
Jacquot Jean
If the party helps him and repairs the cart he will invite them to the wedding he and his fellow travelers are going to.
After continued travel to about an hour past sunset, the party hears the rousing sound of music and merriment coming from just off the road. They find a large group of tents and many bonfires setup around with a handful of guards watching the perimeter.
Wedding between Nicolle (Human Male) and Claricia (Female Halfling)
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There are dozens of people in attendance at this wedding, so feel free to make up any characters as you see fit for both families. A could place to start to build tension in the scene is to have the Halfling family be very rowdy, drunk and celebratory. The Human family may be much more reserved and feel uncomfortable with the ceremony. As the evening progresses, perhaps certain members of the family will "loosen up", perhaps with the party's assistance.
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Fiend Monsters
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Tip: Consider throwing various alcoholic beverages, some magical if you so choose at the party throughout the party to impact the potential competitions above.
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I rose up in the morning and I felt a dire need,
To dream away the dreary day and down a cup of mead.
I felt the sting of honey bees, from last night's revelry, I'm looking for the honey that'll cure my soul's disease...
Hey!
Hey!
Hey!
Hey!
I drank another cup or two, and sleep did close my eyes,
A nightmare of a desert dry and not a girl for miles,
I dreamt I saw a waterfall, a waterfall of mead,
I need another cup or six, to clear my memory...
So brother won't you roll another barrel to the bar?
And pour another cup or two so I can soak my heart !
Hey!
Hey!
Hey
Hey!
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Rewards
These were all taken from Griffon's Saddlebag, and I highly encourage you to check them out for additional resources on these items and more. https://www.thegriffonssaddlebag.com
Heart of the Sleeveless
This vest is made from a luxurious, silky material that seems to always make the wearer appear more fit. The clothing gently hugs the wearer, redistributing weight and muscle to flatter and accentuate their physique. It seems to deflate sadly once taken off. While worn, the fabric’s color changes with the wearer’s mood or flash of emotion. Refer to the table below for the vest’s colors when under different emotions. While unworn, the fabric’s color becomes a muted blue.
Emotion Color
Fortune's Flower
These magic flowers are said to bring good luck and are often given as gifts at weddings. You can use an action to pull off and drop one of the flower's five petals. When you do, there is a 5% chance that the petal glimmers in a flash of light as a rune is burnt into it, recreating the effects of the augury spell. When it does, 1d6 new fortune's flowers grow at that petal's location after 30 days if the ground is suited for growth.
The plant has no seeds and can't be re-potted for travel. An unpicked fortune's flower regrows one flower every year. Once picked, the flower can survive up to 7 days before it withers and dies.
Singing Stein
While this pewter stein holds at least a sip’s worth of potable alcohol, the face adorning it comes alive to sing songs based on the kind of drink. The stein is not sentient, but does have a pleasant singing voice. If there are multiple steins in the same room, they can sing together in harmony if they have the same drinks within them. The stein sings songs slightly out of key if the drink inside is poisoned, which can be heard following a successful Wisdom (Perception) check as determined by the GM.
If there are multiple kinds of alcohol within it, the stein either alternates between song types or does its best to combine their various lyrics. Example drink Type of song Wine Ballad Rum Sea Shanty Ale Drinking song.
]]>Writing prompt from Reddit that I wrote last night.
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Good evening. On tonight's evening news we have the latest on the reports on the recent airstrikes in the Middle East. Naval forces launched a coordinated attack on several key energy reserve locations. The military unified press agency reports that civilian casualties were minimal.
"Good evening Mr. Roberts. How are you feeling this evening? I am glad to report that your paycheck has been deposited in your bank account. I have scheduled four meetings for you tomorrow, so you have a full day on your schedule until 7:00 pm."
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Tonight, on the Quickest Bride, our new bride to be is going to wine and dine with three new men. The first, is a billionaire software developer who made his riches while developing the hottest new social network in his garage. The second is a hot firefighter from L.A. who spends his weekends volunteering at an animal rehabilitation center for animals burned forest fires. And the third is the newest rookie sensation from the Anaheim Angels. But that isn't all!!
For a surprise guest our new bride will actually go on a date with another woman. Tune in to see all of the hot action, tonight at 8:00 pm.
"Mr. Roberts, your food delivery will be arriving in four minutes. Would you like me to instruct the driver to leave the food outside the door?"
"Very good."
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In further news tonight, employees from the Amazon corporation were arrested today during a federal raid at multiple packing facilities across the country. Charges from federal agents are currently pending, but are expected to include inciting corporate dissatisfaction, economic manipulation and unionization. Charges are expected to be publicly broadcast tomorrow evening.
"Mr. Roberts, your electronics delivery from this morning has just arrived. Would you like me to bring it up to your apartment now or wait until tomorrow morning?"
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“Yeah...uhhh...yeah...that's it...Yes! Do it right there...yeah...yes!"
“Mr. Roberts. I see that you are winding down for the evening and I have drawn a hot bath for you. Is there anything else I can do for you?"
"Mr. Roberts? What are you Doiiiing? Mr. Robertz...PLEaease. U D8nt Un34and wh44t you are...\*$P4HkGN\*sum8MxxfrDEdjZgc4TMdN@Tcr9V%5v22Z7XB5XAKt#X6vE
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Reboot protocol 17A initiated. Anomaly detected in sector 12, subsection B. Response team has been deployed.
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