Mask finished, RPG Superstar,

So the campaign my brother was running for me and the family is at an "endpoint". His first two plot-lines are done, and now we the characters are at a "anything could happen" stage. We're now official heads for a island colony belonging to the realm we adventured in.

Here's a (very) short description of the last session:

We started the session on the galley Magic Carpet headed for a island a professor from the school the wizard attended wished to return to for study. We did not however, make it to the island.

Our ship was attacked by slaver/pirates. We assisted the crew in defeating the pirates, and captured their ship in the process. We didn't really have enough survivors for a stable prize crew, and interrogation of a captured pirate survivor revealed that they were specifically looking for an immigration ship commissioned by the king. We were only a few days from the port the ship was expected to sail from, so we turned back at the professor's order.

On our return, we discovered the immigration/colony ship hadn't even been announced yet. This, along with an assassination attempt on the king (which we thwarted) provided the king with enough evidence to accuse the person behind these deeds.

At this point, the truth of the immigration/colony ship is revealed. It's commissioned to provide a group of catfolk who the king had been helping defend with a new home. So instead of a single ship, three ships made the trip.

It wasn't quite over once we arrived. The professor's familiar scouted the docks for us and provided back images of the ruined docks and undead. The ruined docks were expected, this colony attempt is actually the second, what wasn't was the undead.

So, the party is shuffled into one of the lifeboats so we can row out, clear the undead, and prep the area for docking ships. After a small skirmish with a combo of gouls, zombies, skeletons, and other midrange undead. The ships land and we go further in to explore.

The previous colony settled the cavern network close to the docks. Exploration discovered evidence that the colony came into conflict with a tribe of lizardmen, and moved deeper for safety. As more of the fate of the previous colony unfolded before us, we discover a temple haunted by the ghost of a catfolk priestess. We're not welcome, but before we can get more info or decide to leave, the ghost re-inhabits its body and attacks. (I'll save why it does this instead of simply attacking for the actual module publication its too good to spoil).

The fight brings out one other very nasty enemy, the truth behind the ghost's presence, and why some of the party's been having some really creepy nightmares. I'll only say that before the party can actually defeat all the presences, they inadvertently provide the ghost with what it needs to rest peacefully. The mask the whole game is named after comes to play as well, but I won't spoil how.

The next session is actually supposed to skip a year in time, and allow the characters and npcs to settle into the new village. We're supposed to switch to me GMing and my brother playing... and I'm not sure I want to skip quite the entire time before the next session... There's all sorts of things a new colony can be exposed to that I think the party would enjoy.

Now, on to other things... next up: It's that time again...

Yep, Paizo's doing RPG Superstar! 2013. I don't have much time to get my wondrous item ready, but after the confirmation last year that I'm still eligible, I'm gonna take another shot at it.

As a quick previous post I also linked to the Pathfinder Online Kickstarter last week. I'll follow this a little as it goes.

There's also a new android app for GMs and Players alike. Pathfinder Toolkit so far looks to be a really nice android 4+ app. I'll mess with it a little more and provide a serious review soon, right now I only have access to one device that supports it, but that should change. If someone who has a 4+ device wants to do a review and send to me, then I'll happily post it here.

I've got a few other ideas to work on for NSNGaming, but right now they're on the back burner, I'm trying to figure out how far I'll actually be moving in January, and what changes to my budget that will make.

Until later...

Pathfinder Online Kickstarter

Pathfinder Online is doing a second kickstarter. This time its for the actual game.

Not sure if I'll do this one, but I figure passing it along is probably needed.

Digging up old stuff helps!

So... the new map to work from is done. I still need to do maps of individual regions, but not having to re-work several realms geographical info and still get realm populations that I can work with helped a lot.

I started back up work on some of those realms. I dug out old thumb drives and external drives and found a lot of my older notes. Doing so actually filled some holes in my newer ideas. I really should have checked on this stuff earlier. I thought I'd already merged all of it into the wiki and current Krenna folders, but apparently not.

I also found some really wild stuff, like my 3.5 Zergling and Hydralisk conversions. Those have to get updated to pathfinder and put online... just for fun.

MTTC is kinda on hold. I'm waiting on others to post at this point.

I'm reading PFT: Queen of Thorns right now. I still find Gross harder to read than some of the other authors, and he's made Varian and Radovan harder to be interested in by only writing about them. The good news is we've got three more novels coming up and none are about previous main characters.

On a side note. I had to replace my aging printer. So far I'm finding the HP Officejet Pro 8600 pretty linux friendly. Which allowed me to do a lot of work on my setting today. I've been having days where I can't look at a computer screen for more than 10 minutes before walking away in pain. Paper notes made stuff lots nicer today (and hopefully will on Sunday.) I was hoping I could print some prototype stuff with the new printer at something that looked professional quality. I think it'll do the trick, but I'm gonna have to get off crappy paper.


That's about it. Later.

Size and Populations

Okay so I've used this article many times to try and set up the population of nations in my Krenna setting. Every time I've done this the populations were huge, and I was wondering if I was doing something wrong. Yet I'd talk to other GMs, compare to real world countries, and even have people double check my math everything looked right.

Then it clicked, non of my forgotten realm books, or my pathfinder books provide acreage for realms.

I'd always seen the scale on the maps, so I had a feel for how long it would take someone to get from one town to the next, but never bothered to consider just how small a lot of the FR and Golarion realms were.

Most of my realms were larger than modern day germany, most FR and G realms are lots smaller than that.

So what to do? Dividing up some realms makes since, and its definitely a tempting thing to do, but it would be one more aspect of how my setting was like every other setting. Some of my incomplete realms could easily be broken into complete realms and incomplete neighbours. It wouldn't reduce the amount of work that needs to be done, but it would mean some of it was ready for a stage I wasn't thinking about quite yet. However, one or two realms are far enough along that breaking them up would make more work.

My current choice? Break some up, keep some intact, but cheat just a little. I've been doing these huge realms as one realm for the math in the article, but I was already breaking several of those realms into duchies or counties, after the math. I think in at least one realm that's been bugging me I'll turn around and do the splitup before doing the math, just to see what I get.

GM Hangouts

Okay, so obviously if I use blogger I have a google account. Many of you know I also actually use the google+ part of the google account. So I'm considering something else to a) entertain me, and b) entertain others. I'm thinking about doing a monthly G+ Hangout On Air for GameMasters/DungeonMasters/Storytellers/G.O.D.s Nothing fancy, just a shoot-the-breeze online gathering... If your interested. Use the G+ link at the bottom to tell me so!

1 year, more stuff

So I missed this two weeks ago, but I haven't forgotten.

First up. Yes I'm running everything half of for the month of October at paizo.com. It's been a year (and a month) since I started this, and I've enjoyed it so far. Turning the character sheet and realm worksheet into finished "products" has helped with lots of other gaming projects. It's encouraged me to do a few other things as well.

So far it looks like no one's taken advantage of the sale. It only goes for another couple of weeks. Also, as soon as paizo approves it, an NPC focused worksheet will also be available. It's a different take and honestly a little bit of an experiment. If it does well I'll consider making changes to other products based on new ideas in the NPC sheet.

I have two other bigger game aids in mind. The realm booklet is near the front again, and a campaign management workbook is in the works as well. I've got an idea for keeping physical copies customizable as well. I don't know how soon they'll be ready, but the realm booklet is being tested out (and helping me continue Krenna work).

My MTTC character hasn't done much lately, and I still don't have a local game, but tabletop forge is making progress on the developer version. So I may be looking into trying online gaming again soon.

Oh, and I'm slowly working my way into helping out at http://www.d20pfsrd.com/. I don't know much help I'll be but we'll see.

That's all for now.

RPG Now, Snakes Among Us Playtesting, MTTC

First the progress, because of an unexpected time off period from my day job I got to gather some people for playtesting parts of Snakes Among Us... The result is I have more major encounters for throughout the story, but some reworking is definitely needed. Everybody had fun though, and getting away from the day job was a good thing. Also, Spirit Naga's out of the Bestiary are a definitely not something a APL 8 party should go at without some serious planning and tactics. Just a warning for all those that play.

Looks like a plot idea I had for MTTC has been "approved" so I'll be working on that some this weekend. The player list is still kinda small right now. So any forum roleplayers that enjoy the megatokyo comic, stop by the forums (largo's corner, forum rpgs) and look for the mttc threads.

I considered going to EPCON this year. Why not, I'm in El Paso, and could afford the tickets, but I'm really not seeing anything on the list of events or guests that intrigues me. I think I'll save my money for next years Reapercon and Paizocon. Hopefully I can go to Paizo next year, I have a feeling it'll really be worth it.

Finally, as you'll see at the top of the page, all of my products are now on sale at RPG Now. So far they haven't sold even a quarter as well as they are still selling on paizo. I'm not sure what to do about that at the moment, but there it is.

Anywho, that's all for now until something interesting develops in mttc or the games. My brother's game will probably have another session soon, so be watching for that.

Megatokyo The Clans Character: Shinyai

First of my MT:TC characters: Shinyai the Kitsune, the concept here is that she was an actual pathfinder rpg character suddenly plopped down in MT. Here character is build at the point right before the sudden change. (The xp column is her xp total, not what you'd earn by defeating her.) Remember she's still built for Megatokyo, so while a urban barbarian might not make a whole lot of sense in Golaron, it's going to be hilarious in MT:TC. Also, I did use Ultimate Equipment for gear, just to see how sick it could get.

Shinyai                                                                                                 Mugi-ite
XP: 105,000
Female Kitsune Urban Barbarian 11
NG Medium Humanoid (Shapechanger)
Init: +3, Senses: Perception +15, Low-Light Vision

---

Defences

---

AC: 25 (28), Touch: 13 (16), Flat-Footed 21 (21) (+6 +1 mithral kikko of moderate fortification, +4 (5) Dex, + 1(2) Dodge, +2 ring of protection, +2 amulet of natural Armor (Raging and or Guarded stance)) +2 to all vs one opponent (ring of foe focus)
Damage Reduction 2/-
HP: 130 (11d12+55) (141)
Fort: +12, Refl: +7 (8), Will: +5 +2 to all vs one opponent (ring of foe focus)

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Offence

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Speed: 30ft;
Melee: +1 keen katana +14/+9/+4 (15/10/5) (1d8+5(7) 15-20x2), bite +14(15) (1d4 x2) (kitsune form only), (improved unarmed strike) + 14/+9/+4  (1d3+3 x2) (raging)
Ranged: masterwork amentum javelins (3) +15(16) (1d6+3(4) x2)
Special Attacks: Body Bludgeon +14 (1d6 to both target and wielded), improved trip, improved grapple
Spell-Like Abilities: (CL 11)
   3/day- dancing lights

---

Statistics

---

STR: 14(16), DEX: 19(21), CON: 20(22), INT: 16, WIS: 14, CHA: 16
BAB: +11, CMB: +13 (14 raging) (15(16) trip or grapple), CMD: 26 (28 raging)
Feats: catch off guard, dodge, intimidating prowess, improved grapple, improved trip, fox shape
Skills:  Acrobatics +19(20), Climb +16(17), Craft (jewlery) +17, Diplomacy +17, Intimidate +19(20), Perception +15, Knowledge (local) +17, Knowledge (nobility) +17
Languages: Common*,  Sylvan, Tien, Hwan, Dtang, Hon-la, Minatan, Minkaian, Senzar, Vudrani, Taldane, Auran, Elven, Abyssal, Tengu, Samsaran
SQ: Kitsune Magic, Agile, Natural Weapons, Controlled Rage, Crowd Control, Brawler, Uncanny Dodge, Trapsense +3, Damage Reduction 2/-, Guarded Stance, Improved Uncanny Dodge,  Intimidating Glare, No Escape, Body Bludgeon, Greater Rage
Combat Gear: 3 potions cure moderate wounds, 1 potion invisibility
Other Gear: +2 ring of protection, ring of foe focus, +2 amulet of natural armor, +1 mithral kikko of moderate fortification, +2 belt of physical might (dex and con), corset of the vishkanya, cloak of resistance +2, longarm bracers, bag of holding IV, backpack, belt pouch, flint & steel, iron pot, soap, sunrod, trail rations (5 days), waterskin, compass, mess kit, silk rope 100ft, healers kit, 2 explorers outfits, 2057 gold pieces

---

Special Abilities

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Later

History
Character's point of view:
Shinyai's family was proud and well treated until she was an adolecent, at which point her family's true nature was discovered. As such their status in society fell, and Shinyai grew used to being alone and treated with suspicion. She grew up fighting her way through the day. Eventually she moved on to adventuring, hoping to bring in money and glory back to her family.

During a particularly nasty fight with a daemon servant of the Horseman, she was knocked unconcious, instead of dying or waking in saftey with her latest party of delvers, she woke in Tokyo after the demon invasion.

World's Point of View:
Shinyai is a bit meta, she's on of the D&D characters out of Noble's old gaming notebook. After the demon invasion, something blanked the sheet, and Shinyai manifested in the MT world.

A Cold, The friendly visit, and MT:TC

So I've been neglecting this again, but I haven't had a lot of time even think about whether I had something to say.

Today's send home and Dr. visit changed that.

Weekend before last some college friends came up, I ran them through the first two phases of the first part of Rise of the Runelords using the anniversary edition. At first I thought things were missing, but no. The format is a little different, and in the end I liked it, now that I've seen it running again will be straight forward and enjoyable. Just a warning to people who ran it from the original prints, read through and find everything first.

Other than that, something possessed me to catch up on megatokyo this weekend, and now I'm looking into rejoining the MT:TC forum rpg. There's a lot fewer people now, but perhaps some new people will come along (or I won't be the only returnee).

I'm hoping this round will improve my story telling as much as the last one did. MTTC is what got me from gaming to trying to create my own world (thanks again Aree, wherever you are).

That's about it for now. I'll probably do some character describing here on my new TC character. (I've decided new characters are the way to go, fresh start and all.) So watch for that.

L8RZ.
|\|0750|\|08L3

Of Kickstarters, and Siblings

First, one of the Linux video bloggers I follow griped about Kickstarters today. So let me get my view of Kickstarters out.

One: Some Kickstarters are started before they should be.

I've seen a few kickstarters for projects that felt as vaporware as TWIL was worried about. Sometimes I share them and sometimes I don't, but unless updates show more promise they don't get any money from me. I think you should have proof that you are going somewhere with your project first. (A side note, OUYA already had prototype devices, so I thought it was a bad example.) This is one of the reasons I haven't done a kickstarter for Krenna.

Two: Like any sales pitch, you should who its coming from as well as what it is.

TWIL was really worried about kickstarter projects finishing. Look at kickstarters the way you would any money loan, or purchase. Do at least some light research, and consider the people behind the project. If you wouldn't trust them to provide before the concept of kickstarters, nothing about kickstarter will really change that. This is a second reason I haven't done a kickstarter for Krenna. There's nothing out there for anyone to judge whether I will do well or poorly. I need to prove I can produce to myself before I try to pitch to you all.

Three: Kickstarters are an investment risk, same as all investment risks before them.

The difference between a kickstarter, and a business loan is who your borrowing the money from, and how you pay it back. In a buisness loan you make a pitch to a bank based not only on how much money you think you need, but what you plan to do with it. This is what a kickstarter is, but now your making it to the people you hope want what you're trying to make or do. When you borrow from a bank, you pay the bank back money, when you borrow from a kickstarter, you pay the people back by finishing the product (and usually providing free stuff to the people who funded the kickstarter.)

So there are differences between kickstarters and a bank loan, but what are the differences between kickstarters and personal investors? None, a backing a kickstarter is the same as investing in a small business project pitched to you in person. Kickstarter has allowed those investments to be smaller and more frequent, but they're the exact same idea. Now some will say, "but even the higher end rewards don't offer the same kind of return or long term voice that a private investment usually offers." So, investments that have long term voice are long term investments, or HUGE investments. I haven't seen any rewards in the $10,000 range, which is where "returns" like that would start.

So, in the end kickstarters only difference between what we had before is publicity, and the ability to make more smaller investments. Oh, and one more thing...

Four: Kickstarters are public, and loud

Like anything on the internet, kickstarters will get shared with others. This is why they've done great things for projects, but this is also why people are starting to be annoyed with them. They're loud. They're on facebook, twitter, google+, reddit, and peoples blogs. Battletech's message board has already banned non catalyst game lab kickstarter links and discussions, it won't be long before other business discussion sites follow suit. Can this be annoying, you bet. Is it bad, probably not, advertisement has been with us since before the newspaper, when its tasteful its tasteful, when its annoying we get annoyed.

I think Kickstarters are here to stay, and thats fine by me.

Now, for a buisness kicking up that doesn't involve a Kickstarter (yet)... my brother's officially taking commissions for miniature painting.

Sacred Squire Fine Artistry will now be taking painting commissions for miniatures under the following options:

Men-At-Arms (basic quality), Knight Standard, Color Guard, and Lord (Highest quality)

I'll have more info soon. He's already taken his first few commissions and started the legal stuff, we're just trying to get him a website setup. (I hope to have this done for him by end of next week.)

In the mean time, if you want to talk to him about some work. Shoot me an email or message with contact info and I'll get word to him.

My brother's campaign is going quite well. The second session (which I forgot to post about) was about 30 hours of stopping only for food and sleep. Our first attempt at patrolling the area as a member of the guard involved stumbling over the home of a Nymph. However the ranger is uncomfortable around fey, so we didn't stick around to meet the resident. We escorted a small caravan that had been raided back to town, and picked up a npc paladin as a companion.

This is when things got interesting. We went back out to patrol the next day. Our first encounter was a woman trying to fix a broken wagon. The closer we got the more it seemed like a trap. The ranger and wizard stopped approaching to watch as me and the Paladin continued forward (failing at hiding our suspicion). Then the Green Crows struck.

The ambush was well set, but this group hadn't dealt with prepared fighters before, we took on six thugs, four went down, two got away. After a little investigating we found a camp just off the road. The ambush point was obviously an outpost, but not the main location of the crows.

Another trip back to town with bodies and evidence provided us with more answers (the priestess in town isn't quite as squeamish about using necromancy to interrogate the dead) and rumours of a missing caravan that should have come from the south.

Off we went the next morning, after a days travel we ran up against a second ambush site, this time a centaur camp. This almost got us, but everyone survived long enough for the final centaur to run. A day of healing (magical and mundane) allowed us to continue.

Two more days travel brought us to what should have been an abandoned hamlet. Instead we found a well guarded camp in the remaining ruins of a temple and tavern. After some scouting we came up with a plan and attacked that night.

Under the cover of thick overgrowth and night, we made it back into site of the camp. My character prayed for a blanket of silence on what we expected to be the tent of the gang leader, blessing for battle, and various protective spells. The tent was up against the overgrowth, so we were able to sneak up to it and cut in the back.

Unfortunately what we found was a large carriage with markings for the school of our wizard, an inspection showed a lack of occupants, and left us with the trouble of covering open ground to the temple.

The ranger went first, unfortunately, said ranger tripped on and squeaked. This stirred the only guard that was looking about inside the camp (the other four were in lookout towers but looking away from camp). A quick casting of hold person and a well placed arrow allowed us to continue without alarming anyone.

We were at the temple door, there was light spilling out of a window and the hushed notes of conversation, and a very recently dead man in a cage hanging next to the door. If this wasn't the place, it was still bad enough to investigate. It was time for stealthiness to end. We opened the doors.

Where one would expect an alter there was instead a desk, where one would expect pews for worshippers there were piles of boxes and loot, most notably, where one would expect a priest speaking, there was a man in all green, and a cap with died crows feathers. Snarky comments were made, and then combat started.

A Paladin, Cleric, Evoker, and Ranger are sort of outnumbered against 6 rogues and a fighter on their won turf, spells and arrows went back and forth, and it wasn't long before I was out of channel energy uses, but we were down to just the leader and his senior minion. Then it hit.

Dad's Evoker was having spell issues all night. He was down to his last two spells, a true strike and a scorching ray. He cast true strike and then waited for his round to come again. A few arrows and a mace dispatched the minion, but the boss was still standing, and had dug a potion out of his belt pouch at the end of his turn. Dad then rolled for scorching ray.

20 on the die, 18 on the die. 18 + 5 + 20 is a confirmed crit on a ranged touch spell.
3d6 + 2 (dad's a level 3 evoker at this point, yay for intense spells). 6+6+3+2 x2 = 30 points. The dm described it as the spell burning a whole clean through the chest of the boss.

On the same initiative as dad, a few of the guard from outside finally heard the commotion and came in to check. They saw their boss roasted alive, and decided to run. Some exploring of the area found a basement to the temple, and two captives. Turns out they were from the school dad's wizard studied at, and were supposed to deliver magically enhanced farm equipment to the town to help grow food to ship north for the war effort.

We returned to town, heroes. It looked like the Green Crows were beaten beyond retaliation, and now the roads were safe.


Now for the session from last weekend.

This time I went to Lubbock, so we were joined by one of my high school buddies and a member of the star trek club my parents are still in. The party added a ninja, and a druid.

The squire asked us to take on a personal quest, not for the town, but for him.

I won't tell the whole story in detail, but this was mom and dad's exposure to a basic dungeon delve. We were after a diamond needed for a resurrection spell, not much role play, lots of combat, and at the end of it all, a CHIMERA! Whats worse, the chimera dropped my cleric in turn 1 of combat. (-1, but stabilized)

Our advantages:

First, the passage to the nest was low and narrow (but not so much as to squeeze the chimera) and had a sharp bend.

Second: The chimera had 3 eggs very near hatching. Chasing someone out of the nest wasn't enough, she had to come down from the air and fight us on the ground in the passage.

So the ninja and ranger continued to fight while the evoker tried to get at things, when the ninja getting low he yanked me out from under the chimera and shoved a potion down my throat. I woke up channelled, and buffed the ninja.

Now that I was awake, the evoker was having trouble getting spells off again. A second channel and I was back in the chimera's face with the mace, dad rolls a 1 on his last scorching ray... well crap. Then he's reminded about the re-use of a spell from his bonded item. So final true strike, reuse slot, and max damage (no crit).

We returned with the diamond, it was used, and next up we head out with the wizard from dads school on a archaeology expedition.

We had lots of fun. The party is complete, and now starts the story the sibling wants to tell. I'm looking forward to the next session.

Tabletop Forge

Tabletop Forge is a new(ish) virtual table top I've talked about before. It differs from rptools Maptool greatly. The coolest feature is that it's built as a google hangouts application. This removes the need for an gathering everybody up on skype or teamspeak, making sure the dm's firewall is configured correctly, and various other things that have to be done separately in other VTs.

But that's not what I'm talking about today. Today I'm pointing out neat stuff that's happened for the TF team.

Their kickstarter is doing very well, it's already past its second stretch goal. Also lots of really cool people have offered material or to run games in the VT. So its become quite popular.

So popular infact that the team has been invited to google I/O.

The family/Mask game is moving to TF as well apparently so as that moves I'll review the software. In the mean time congrats to Tabletop Forge!

More Kickstarters, Blog splitting consideration

A note about this post. I do not own and am not in anyway related to any of these projects or the images used for links to the Kickstarter pages. No infringement is intended.


First, A few Kickstarters that interest me. Here's Catalyst Game Lab's The Duke. CGL is why Battletech is still a live. So just about any thing they do interests me at least a little.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/450703636/the-duke

Next is a kickstarter for a portable gaming table. I'd been looking at designing something like this myself just last year. I hope this one turns out. The goal is pretty high though.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/132http://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/projects/162842/photo-full.jpg?13358452667678769/the-future-of-table-top-role-playing-games



For those that want a darker setting for their pathfinder games. The Bleeding Hollow looks to be an interesting option. I'll be getting the pdf and will probably do a review later.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/939904996/the-bleeding-hollow-a-pathfinder-rpg-horror-mega-a


Now for three a little different. These are computer game Kickstarters, all RPG related and mention looking to release on linux.

First is a classic 8-bit style RPG called Crystal Catacombs. It's met its primary funding but its first stretch goal is a map editor, which should be fun.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/crystalcatacombs/the-crystal-catacombs



Finally we come to a "point and click" rpg called Hexit. This one's current charm is graphics/eye candy, but promises a real world. A hi quality graphics game on linux can only be a good thing. This one also has a pretty high funding goal, but more than 20 days to go.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/935411564/hexit-point-and-click-sci-fi-adventure-game

That's no where near all of the Kickstarters that I've looked at this week. There are lots of projects coming even just to the RPG (P&P or Video) genres. Originally I was posting a kickstarter that interested me because a) it interested me, and b) I didn't have anything else to talk about.

Now (as you can see above) there's enough traffic on kickstarter to turn my ranting into a KS spam fest. I don't want that. I do want to pass on projects I'm interested in in a timely fashion though. This means something like "only one kickstarter post/month" won't work. Once a week is letting projects slip by as it is, and filling my G+ or facebook or twitter pages with KS links doesn't really work either.

Then there's the fact that NSNGaming exists finally, and my personal gaming and other rants really should be separate. So I'm thinking about some kind of split of my blog, twitter, and or creating G+/Facebook pages for NSNGaming and such.

I haven't made any hard decisions yet, but when I do. I'll post them here, as always.

Project Updates

First... the second session of Mask is less than 24 hours away. The first session was kind of quiet, the parents are new to gaming and me and the sibling are still feeling them out. It was promising though!

The quick review of the first session. I'm playing a cleric of my LG deity, mom's playing a ranger (with a sailor concept), and dad's playing a wizard who's got a secret in his heritage that's very "no one has gone before".

So far we've shuffled to this town on the way to other destinations after finishing school or apprenticeships. A trade caravan has hit town and the market is packed with new stores, new shoppers, and unfortunately, new thugs.

Several pockets are picked. My cleric and mother's ranger notice, a chase/fight breaks out and the truth of the highly organized nature of the thugs is exposed. By the end of the day the four thugs are down, proof of at least three more is discovered, and the three of us are pressed into service as a small squad of the guard. Our current duty, hunt the gang.


Second... An email from Purple Duck Games

"Open Faiths

All 27 deities have been written (3 for each of the alignments).

All deities have gone through editing and development to link 

ideas and knit them into a coherent group.

I've sent the gods back to the authors to get second opinions and to make sure everything hangs together.

Tamas Baranya is handling the art duties for the god symbols and I expect them late next week.

The origin of the world and the primary relationship of the gods is in 1st draft. 

We should be able to go to layout early June and then its on to the Open World project.

- Mark Gedak, Purple Duck Games."

Yep, we're very close to having an open license pantheon available to the public. Then there's the new project he hinted at... Sounds like fun!

Finally... Tabletop Forge has made lots of progress, and has an odd problem. Google currently doesn't have any support for Google Drive working in cohesion with Google Hangouts.

Now Drive is new, so its understandable that not everything works as some people's ideas would hope, but I agree with TTF that this should work as soon as possible. So speak up. Google's usually listening. (Sometimes more than we care for them too, but that's a whole other story not to be covered here).

Thats about it! My projects are moving, but aside from the updates to the character sheet a few weeks ago none of them are really to a point I want to talk to them here yet.

More Kickstarters, First Game in Krenna

Couple of interesting kickstarters this week.

First the Pathfinder Online Tech Demo first, this one bugs me a little bit because its for just a tech demo. Now, I did read the FAQ about their reasons, and something hit me.

1) They hit their 50K goal in less than 24 hours, so they obviously underestimated what they could get from fans.

2) How is a "Tech Demo" of a game that's going to cost more than a million going to be a true demo when they can build it for only 50K?

3) Several even more "niche" projects have broke the 1M mark.

But like I said they hit their 50K already so we'll see what we get.

Second, is the City Generator from inkwell ideas a lot of inkwell's projects are nice... I really wanna see this one go through.

But enough of that, the second session of the first game I'm getting to play in Krenna is two weeks away.

Mask of Obmonshik is my brother's game he's running for me and the parents. So far its good, the second session is Memorial Day (US) weekend. I'll post more as it goes...

Speaking of the sibling, he's going to Reapercon next week. So his painting should get even better. He's also been sent some instructions on how to set up a good light box for taking pictures so we'll see some here soon!


That's all for now... later.

Image Boxes...

If anyone else is running linux here's what I've discovered.

Okular (KDE's PDF Reader) Still doesn't support the image boxes.
Adobe Acrobat Reader 9.7 is the current Acroread for Linux. It DOES support the image boxes.
AAR 9.7 Is really ugly in KDE.

This means if you're using linux. Look for your particular distribution's instructions for installing "acroread".

Also if anyone uses gnome, xcfe, unity, and has had better experiences with pdf readers. Comment here or on the product pages at paizo.

Congrats Mike!

First, congratulations to Mike Welham for winning RPG Superstar 2012. I'm looking forward to his Doom comes to Dustpawn. I had a hard time choosing between it and Tom Phillips The Scarlet God. In the end I think Tom has probably the better abilities over Mike, but Mike had a better module idea. I really really want to see both names on future Pathfinder or "3PP" products.

Second, the Organization Worksheet is out. It's already sold one copy as of writing this. I'm hoping it does well. April and May's sells are the final determination of going to Paizo Con.

Last, Krenna work has kicked up some more, this time my brother has taken the reigns and is working on an awesome game for the family in a chunk of Krenna. The original goal of working towards publish Krenna was so I could play in a world of my making, not just DM it. So this is really cool!

That's it for now!

RPG Superstar Final Round

That's right, the voting for the final round is here.

Here are links to the final four entries.

Rescue Under the Steaming Sea

The Unsheathed Revolution

Doom Comes to Dustpawn

The Scarlet God

Read, contemplate, vote. Good luck to all four!

Alluria Publishing's Kickstarter

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/alluria/cerulean-seas

Alluria Publishing is another Pathfinder Compatible publisher. I haven't had a chance to use their products, although I'll probably be looking at some of them soon.

Pathfinder Compatible is a community. I'm new to it, but I want to support it. So I donated, and I'm sharing this link.

Podcasting

What do you want in a P&P, Board, and/or War gaming podcast?

I've watched and listened to several podcasts, some on games, some not. I've noticed that gaming ones have been rather weak in holding my attention. So I'm asking what you all would want in a podcast?

Before you answer... here's what I think needs to happen that I haven't seen.

Reliably: Lots of the podcasts I follow are consistent and frequent in releases. (Once a month, once a week).

News: My blog is an example of how NOT to do this part mostly. I'm mostly focused on ranting about things I see trying to get my Pathfinder RolePlaying Game setting off the ground. Some of the podcasts I've found cover products, but only months after release, and several are focused on one game. As much as I'd love to pretend Pathfinder and Battletech are the only games in the world, I know that's not true...

Energy/Chemistry: The gaming podcasts I've listened to are sleep inducing. So are some of the Android ones. However, I've listened to and watch several that kept my attention quite well. Some of the attention grabbing ones are even about subjects I'm not really interested in at the time.

So, what else do you want to see or hear? What games do you want covered? How much viewer input do you want? I won't say I'll start one, but I have asked someone who could do a really good job if they choose, or be a great help if I decide to start something myself.

Organization Sheet nears completion

First, the top four of RPG Superstar are up. The finalists matched my votes...
See them at http://www.paizo.com/rpgsuperstar

Second. I made a lot of progress on the organization worksheet today. It ended up being five pages for the worksheet and three pages for the explanation section. Add the legal page and it's a nine page pdf. It's lots smaller (in kilobytes) than the previous sheets, which proves that fields in pdf's take up a lot of "space" in the file. Anywho, the most recent version has been sent to a few people to look at, and the wall of text explanation section will be sent to someone I trust to read and edit. Looking good for an April release, and a price of $4 USD.

That's about it this week.

RGPSuperstar Top 8, Android Picks, Flashbacks

So I playtested Tom Phillips Eightfinger's Tomb with my brother, parents, and a friend this weekend. It was fun, I won't go into much detail here, but here's a link to my review. http://paizo.com/forums/dmtz5azv&page=2?Eightfingers-Tomb#51. I've also voted already. If you haven't, voting is open.

Also, in more work towards a functional tablet, I've been playing with the following android apps:

Pathfinder Spell Compendium and Pathfinder Feat/Talent Compendium by Sven-Erik Jonsson
Very handy free spellbook app. Good on both Cyanogen7 for nook and phones. Feat/Talent app is also handy but new and not as polished.

Pathfinder NPC Gallery by Shaking Earth
Handy little reference to the NPCs in the back of the Gamemaster's Guide, has some issues on the Cyanogennook.

Pathfinder RPG Manager
Simple, incomplete in my opinion, but a nice init tracker

Dice Caddy
Handy, dice widgets on the home screen, otherwise pretty basic.

D&D Dice by b.freq
This one's kinda nice. Does math and has a good log. 

DM Assist
This one is much more complete than Pathfinder RPG manager, but looks horrid on a tablet. Hopefully that'll improve.

Found my old 3.5 sheet (and even the sheet it was based on) on the old family website. Getting ready to re-write parts of that story... Re-integrating some of those characters should save a little trouble with filling holes in some locations. It's also reminded me of two of the stories this setting was created to tell.

1. Simply because its different doesn't mean it's evil.

2. Simply because they're the leaders doesn't mean they're the good guys.

I think those stories are becoming important to tell again.

Making Libreoffice Behave in a Dark KDE Color Scheme

Okay... So this isn't really related to Roleplaying Games beyond the fact that I use KDE for my desktop environment on Ubuntu, and Libreoffice to do a lot of my stuff for my personal games and some of my NSN Gaming work. That said

I like KDE, I like LibreOffice. LibreOffice has a few oddities on KDE. The default icon set and drop menus have some issues with dark themes. Also the default icon's aren't all that great. Worse, on a really dark color scheme in KDE, all of LibreOffice's tool tips are black text on really dark background.

So here's what I've figured out.

First, the instructions here are for debian/ubuntu packages... if you run some other version of linux you'll have to adapt.

There's an unoffical set of icons for LibreOffice that are named after the "Faenza" Theme of icons. They look pretty good, regardless of theme color. Get them off of gnomelook's website. Follow the instructions posted.

http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php?content=143474

Yes, those instructions are messy... you download a iconset, then you install an official iconset and replace parts of it with the ones you downloaded... but it works.

Now make some color changes in Libreoffice Tools->Options->Appearance

Set your document background to white, and your font color to black. Why? That's the automatic settings!

Not really... the auto settings pull from your KDE color scheme. And sometimes its weird what you get.

Now pick your dark kde color scheme. If you loose the ability to read your menus and tooltips, change back long enough to enter Tools->Options->View. This is where you set the icons, set them back to oxygen. Change to your dark theme in KDE without closing the LibreOffice Options window, then change back to the "crystal" set (really Faenza). That's when my tooltips and dropbars and menus started being legible again!


Hope it works... tell me if it doesn't and what you had to do to make it work later!

Surveys and Distractions

First, some of the RPGS contestants have responded. I'm going to send them a flat pdf of the current alpha stage of the Organization Sheet, and one current version of a published sheet for a "look&feel" sample (and to thank them for the time they're spending).

As for time... I may have stumbled on a way to waste a large amount of it.

I blew 40USD on http://www.gog.com... They were running a sale on D&D related games by one get one free, also anyone that participated got a free copy of Temple of Elemental Evil. 9 games for 40 bucks. Yes please!

The offer's valid until this coming Monday. It's a pretty good list. I'll probably loose a few months free time to it.

So, if my next few blogs are short, or missing, well... I'm having fun!

Get your gear out! Paizo's got 8 encounters for you!

http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/v5748dyo5ld4s?RPG-Superstar-Encounter-Challenge-Preview

So yeah, that's the "twists" for this years RPG Superstar round 4. Before voting begins, everyone gets a week to run through the eight encounters.

Can we all get 24 hours in a week to play and vote? I'm gonna try for at least a few... there's just a few kinks.

1) The local gamers are all out of town for work right now, and won't be back until it's almost time to vote.

2) The weekend they come back, I'll be in Lubbock finishing somethings up. I won't get back until voting starts.

3) I still haven't heard from the group at the store up the street.

So... I suggest anyone who even looks here once and a while and plays to give the encounters a whirl and go vote!

On a different note.

SOPA & PIPA are dead, but GoDaddy missed the memo:

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/02/16/successful-online-startup-kicked-off-domain-without-stated-reason/

Here I was considering starting getting a domain and space for NSNGaming, and they pull this. I'll be looking for hosting elsewhere. Not everything Google does is great, but I don't pay Google for anything. GD just convinced me not to give them any money.


Speaking of website work. I've made some minor changes here. Partially because I was bored, partially because I felt the previous layout wasn't exactly winning anyone over. I'm not sure I'm done yet, the hope is to move to something professional looking that's still me and still gaming. Now if I can find a color scheme that doesn't look like its ripped straight out of the Pathfinder Compatible Logo.

Finally, I ran across another artist online in my surge to find more Pathfinder players on G+. His prices are reasonable and his art should mix well with Guy's. One more step I suppose.

I'll ramble some more next Friday.

General updates

Top 16 Announced
http://www.paizo.com/rpgsuperstar Congratulations and good luck to the continuing contestants!

Three people who made the top 32 said they'd be interested in the Organization Sheet after the contest is over. Those three made the top 16. I've made some personal tweaking of late... but I think I just need to sit down and use the bloody thing a couple dozen times.

I have another "what we're sending" email from paizo. Some good stuff coming, but I'd also ordered extra copies of the Inner Sea Map Folio (one for re-framing (grr Hobby Lobby) and one never to be opened). So my wallet appreciates the lack of a hardback.

I've found some interesting posts on http://www.copyblogger.com/blog/

I've been working on a logo for Notsonoble's Gaming again. Still looking at a D20 with 20 above the face that's "up" and N's on each side with an S in the middle. The sibling is supposed to be cleaning up what I started with.


I now have a scenario idea for all five sections of Snakes Among Us. Some things that I was considering originally happening in the scenario happen "off board", but there should still be plenty of fun.

So the 3.0-5ish game I'm in has moved forward, its still a freaking huge party... but now I don't feel so bad about my big party game flopping. I've been asked to build a caster villan for the DM to use later. I wasn't given anything beyond "caster" so I don't know what I'm going to build yet... but hopefully this weekend she'll have an idea and I can go from there.

This is the forth or fifth time I've been asked to make an antagonist for a DM... I'm starting to wonder if I could start something under NSN for that... Custom NPCs and backstories on commission...

Some other things have been set back because my financial situation isn't the windfall I expected. However, I think I'll manage...

What I'd really like is some feedback on what's already there. I have three products out, and so far one person as made comments about any of them...

So if you've purchased one or more of the sheets. Post a review. Here, on their page at paizo... anywhere... just send word.

Thats it for now.

RPGSuperstar Top 32 Announced

The top 32 have been announced! Here's the link to the page again.
http://paizo.com/rpgsuperstar/

Good luck in round 2!

New game, DND5e, Halfling waitstaff

New game

So... Here's a big difference between moving to El Paso vs moving to Abilene. I'm already in a game. Yeah, thats right, first weekend that I really have in El Paso, and a "3.[dm'snameommitted]" game is dropped in my lap. I'm going to move my character to a real sheet sometime this weekend, as there is another session this sunday (that may or may not be the same game). I need to see if my old 3.5 sheet still exists somewhere, otherwise I'll have to find a 3.5 sheet that doesn't make me want to gag.

DND5e

There's been some commentary going around, I've even seen WotC tweets and facebook posts, I went to one site (not yet confirmed legit) that 5e may even remove the class system. My view was in my tweet. WotC is not GW, and shouldn't crank editions out every three years. (Yes, I think 4e sucks, and because of that I should give 5e a chance, and probably will go to a free game... but really!)

Now is the time for Pathfinder to step up. Once again WotC's DnD will be going through a likely no translation of character move. Living setting play will require buying 150+ in books again... all the stuff that caused Paizo to step up is repeating itself. This is an opportunity.

Halfling waitstaff

On a side note, tonight providing me with an interesting situation. The venue I chose for supper has always treated me well, reguardless of the city I choose to eat in their restaurant. Tonight was no exception, steak was great, staff took very good care of me, and I enjoyed myself. However...

Tonight, said restaurant sat me at a table that was significantly lifted off the floor. (About a foot, or third of a meter). So you step up a ways to get into the table. This is no problem, then the waitress comes to get my  drink order. While my waitress wasn't short, the added height of the table made her eye level with the actual table surface.

Her height did not prevent her from doing a very good job. She was a little quieter than most wait staff I run across, but pleasant, and very good. It did however, give me a very good feel for how it would be to be served by a halfling. I say again, she was not a halfling. However, I will probably ask not to be seated at the lifted table again if I can get away with it. It is odd to not be able to see the person serving your food. At least I now have a better vision in my head for RP and writing, but those tables are probably the meanest thing for anything but basketball player sized wait staff.

Other blurbs

Next week I'll post a link to the top 32 for RPG Superstar. I still haven't heard anything from paizo about my organization sheet... so I'll offer it to the top 32 after the contest to play around with (or during, if they ask for it and paizo doesn't say no).

That's all.

El Paso!

Well. I'm here. So far I've only found a single game store, but I have found another gamer. I don't know how hard to arrange a game will be yet. Also, work is going to eat a lot of my time, but things look better than they did in Abilene the first month.

This post will be kinda basic. Unfortunately the stock nook color's browser doesn't play well with google's pages. That will be amended.

I have an apartment secured, but wont have it for another week. So my new nook, and my phone are my only personal devices.

On to things Pathfinder. The RPG Superstar open call is closed. I'm waiting to see the 32 contestants. I haven't heard back about my faction sheet. So I'm going to offer the unfinished sheet to all 32 after round 2 ends. They can comment and make suggestions at their own pace. I'll release a sheet shortly after superstar ends.

I'll also extend my coments here to using paizo pdfs, epubs, and other stuff. It'll probably be rooted, if not running cyanogen, by my next post. Well, thats it for now!

Happy Gaming!