What are y'all up to these days?

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Just heading out to a viewing of The wall (2017) the Matt Damon one not the Pink Floyd one. Afterwards the discussion is what would a Chinese inspired Lord of the Rings look like.
Nothing like the original, which is based on Catholic instead of Confucian ethic. But then you should start by changing the events in Silmarilion:thumbsup:!

The one thing that would remain consistent is probably the number of female characters, though:shade:!
 
my crew is going to experience a step up in difficulty tonight i think, but also all of them are there. i expect they will meet an aboleth , as well as nagas (out of monster island) and lizardmen (from Classic Fantasy). they are going to be headed into the marsh and jungle around Rhest. what the elves who patrol the area and the party does not know is that a powerful multiheaded naga (a Nagaraja) and his sorceress consort have laid an illusion over the entire area and they are draining the marsh, exposing the ruins of Rhest, and rebuilding a reptilian empire!

the Red Hand (with the help of a draconic ally) has penetrated the illusion and are in the midst of negotiating with the nagas for their aid.

can the party prevent the alliance between the Red Hand and the Nagaraja? will they become slaves of the aboleth in the forbidden pool? Will they make it out in time to stop the red hand's inexorable advance? find out tonight, on game night!
 
My Feng Shui 2 campaign is going to add a new player. Our Serbian player is bringing his wife, too!
Also, this is a good thing, because I didn't realize it before last session, but having only men around the table did actually feel weird:shock:.
Not for any political or ideological reason, mind you. It just felt weird and different somehow than my usual campaigns.

In game, they're the Old Master pacifist and his in-game wife, Bounty Hunter who's protecting an orphanage... should be a fun campaign. You never know what to expect of an Old Master:shade:!
We've also got a monk looking for the stolen holy jade statuette and the murderers of his teacher (Shifu Archetype), a Max Payne-based cop who likes using his hands and improvised weapons (reskinned Everyday hero, actually) and a Gambler.
And most of them seem to think we're playing in the standard Feng Shui 2 setting. They might be in for a surprise:devil:.
 
Nothing like the original, which is based on Catholic instead of Confucian ethic. But then you should start by changing the events in Silmarilion:thumbsup:!

The one thing that would remain consistent is probably the number of female characters, though:shade:!
Consensus was that the silmarilion has a theme of golden ages falling into chaos (elves had had a golden age that decayed then Númenóreans had their that fell) which kinda fits nicely with that quote from Romance of the Three kingdoms "The world under heaven, after a long period of division, tends to unite; after a long period of union, tends to divide. This has been so since antiquity." also since I'm pulling out quotes from my notes, "We three will swear brotherhood and unity of aims and sentiments." Tell that doesn't does like something the Fellowship of the ring would say. I'm willing to discuss this topic in detail later but right now I got get moving to get to a discussion on Code of Hero.
 
As a sidenote, I just managed to recover a password I'd lost almost a year ago. Yay for small victories:smile:?
Well, it contains my attempts at writing a GMing book, so that's something:wink:.

Consensus was that the silmarilion has a theme of golden ages falling into chaos (elves had had a golden age that decayed then Númenóreans had their that fell) which kinda fits nicely with that quote from Romance of the Three kingdoms "The world under heaven, after a long period of division, tends to unite; after a long period of union, tends to divide. This has been so since antiquity."
Yes, but in Tolkien, each subsequent age is also lesser than the pprevious one (culminating in our Age, for that matter). That's why the elves depart Middle Earth in the end.
OTOH, the above quote about Tian Xia (All Under Heavens, a.k.a. China) implies a cyclic phenomenon, because the world doesn't get lesser when the rulers lose the Mandate of Heavens. The Mandate is the same, always there. It just has to be re-earned - we're not in a Golden Age, but that's because the people have lost the Way and aren't venerating the ancestors nearly enough:grin:!

I mean, come on... tell me that the elven rulers remaining and rebuilding wouldn't make a difference to the ending of LotR:shade:!

Tolkien ends with the theme of the sacrifice of the few for the good of the many, because those few don't profit from their deeds. That's fully comprehensible for a Catholic.
In a real Chinese novel, they would be richly rewarded and made influential. The virtuous get the Mandate of Heavens, which is a mandate to rule.
Yeah, Aragorn got to rule, and the hobbits became influential in the Shire...but that was because Aragorn was born to rule and had the bloodline to do so. His virtue of healing just proved being of the right bloodline. And Frodo still had to retire in the end, along with the elves. Having carried the Ring for so long, he couldn't remain when the Age was turning...towards a lesser one.
OTOH, in a China-inspired novel, Aragorn's virtue of healing would prove he's educated enough to rule. Same result? Maybe, but with notable differences, IMO:thumbsup:.
And Gimli and Legolas would still be there as his generals. Again, no Elven exodus would be likely.

also since I'm pulling out quotes from my notes, "We three will swear brotherhood and unity of aims and sentiments." Tell that doesn't does like something the Fellowship of the ring would say.
Sure it is. The Brotherhood is like a gathering of renowned Xia, with a smattering of disciples (except the disciples wouldn't be hairy-footed).

I'm willing to discuss this topic in detail later but right now I got get moving to get to a discussion on Code of Hero.
Until later, I guess?
 
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Gonna play through these modules soon.
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It just so happens I have dolls of all six characters they suggest for use as PCs--I just wish my Black Widow was wearing her old grey costume rather than the Scarlett Johansson version.
Black-Widow-Marvel-Comics-Natalia-Romanova-4-b.jpg
 
Make one of these ladies a halfling, and this was pretty much out adventuring party at the end of last night's DCC game.

Successful Adventuredisplay.jpg

Seriously, we had 4 HP left between the three of us, and that was after making two 'rolling over the body' rolls.
 
That's really cool art, had a big effect on me when I was first getting into D&D.
I really like the art with the iconic LotFP adventurer ladies myself. The scene pictured is a lot closer to the dungeoncrawl experience in my mind's eye than the comic book action shots and glamour poses in 5e.
 
I think 3E was the edition where much of the art was characters posing, floating in white space with no background. I found the core books in that edition to oddly be over illustrative. Each picture was concretely showing a character class or someone using a feat or spell from that page.

I can't say that is a bad thing, but I feel like art in a fantasy game should also take you beyond the text a little.

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Okay. This picture bugs me. Look at her helmet. Look at her hairstyle. Imagine her putting on that helmet.
 
All I can remember about 3rd edition art is belts....so many belts....
 
5E's art reminds me a lot of 2E's art.

I actually wish they would put more black and white pieces in the books these days, but it is what it is.
 
I went to a 5e session last night. Our party met by being all locked up in the local prison (My character Khuzu, the Githzerai Necromancer, was mistaken for a infamous grave-robber). Through shenanigans our party escaped and also angered an Astral Dragon that was in the process of phasing into the world. It was a lot of fun with so many great moments, such as when one of our party members, a Deep Gnome home-brewed tinkerer class, brutally stabbed a guard in the groin with a chisel. Or the time that Khuzu, a sickly looking Githzerai that is best described as a skeleton with skin stretched over his bones, was knocked unconsciousness by the astral dragon, picked up by the Goliath team member, who then rolled a Nat 20 on a performance roll and proceeded to dramatically and heroically carry Khuzu in a romantic novel fashion. In the end we decided to meet up every Saturday for the foreseeable future.
 
We just finished up a great session of our 5e weird fantasy game. One of my players was kind enough to step up and run a few games while I settle into the new job. I joined the party as an Old Earth astronaut looking for a way home from Hyperborea (a strange hexagonal world near Saturn some 5 billion years in the future). Mechanically, he's a reskinned swashbuckler.

It was pretty sweet, exploring a megadungeon with a climactic battle against a trio of spellcasting, Cthulhu-worshiping wights in a defiled temple of Apollo. Hunger of Hadar + energy drain + chill touch is a pretty deadly combo but we played it smart and didn't lose anyone. I normally play fighters or wizards so the 5e swashbuckler was a nice change of pace; I had a lot of fun hitting like a truck then slipping behind the fighting line.

Voros Voros Fair enough, I concede.

All I can remember about 3rd edition art is belts....so many belts....
I don't care much for the dungeonpunk-Pathfinder look but wont trash anyone for liking it.
 
Received my Savage Worlds Adventure Edition box set today! I'm pretty excited to go over it in more detail when I get home from work, and use it for Friday's game. And this time, everyone's character sheets are securely in my file box at home, as well as photographed in my phone!
 
Trying to find a Sci-Fi game, which I love rather than tolerate (Other than Star Frontiers) I'm keen on Stellar Adventures as a system, trying it out if I can at some point. Working on adding a chapter I realized I need on non-violent but action-heavy games in superhero settings.
 
Received my Savage Worlds Adventure Edition box set today! I'm pretty excited to go over it in more detail when I get home from work, and use it for Friday's game. And this time, everyone's character sheets are securely in my file box at home, as well as photographed in my phone!
I got the shipping notification for mine late last week. I'm really looking forward to getting that.
 
Worked from home today while a city construction crew ripped up the road in front of my house with jackhammers. I thought it would never end! Now I need to find some aspirin...
 
My driveway was just redone. Now it's much more pleasant to drive down. However instead of directing the water to the three storm drains attached to 12" storm pipes it now directs them to the surface drain in front of my door and garage which are attached to a 4" pipe.

This can't possibly go horribly wrong could it? It least I don't live in Seattle where it rains alot. Oh crap. I do.
 
A new player is coming over to make a character for my home Savage Worlds game tomorrow. I don't know them very well; hope it goes okay.

Next game session is Friday, yay! Since our last session didn't actually happen, as detailed up-thread, I can mostly re-use the material I was going to use for that & shouldn't have to do much new prep; just review what I already did.
 
Working on converting the Delian Data Tomb SR5 adventure to Mythras. Not too bad currently, but it's a good exercise in telling me what I have not standardized and what I'm missing. Hacking rules are entirely missing currently, and I had to spend some time figuring out how a sorcerer might protect 4 floors of an office building with spirit and spell resistance. Also, translating things like Limits is a big troublesome.
 
It seems we just might be playing Feng Shui in a local Chinese restaurant. The boardgames club is kinda noisy.
Well, it should actually help us with the athmosphere:grin:!
 
Went and saw Geoff Tate's Operation Mindcrime last night. He's been touring about 19 months, as it is the 30th anniversary for that Queensryche album. I never saw Queensrchye back at the height of their popularity, so it was a treat hearing all these songs live. Sure, it's not Queensryche (I'll be seeing them with their current singer in February), but it was still a great show.
 
Okay. This picture bugs me. Look at her helmet. Look at her hairstyle. Imagine her putting on that helmet.

As a kid, I was brought up as a Methodist and we went to the chapel every Sunday. There was always a pew with a row of women wearing hats and they kept their hats on with hat pins. For years, I thought that Methodist women were really hard, as they could stick pins into their head to keep their hats on.
 
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