Author Archives: tony

Proving who you are

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Wizards of the Coast provide a mail service where you can send rules queries for their games, including D&D.  This is cool, because it seems no matter how well a rulebook is written there are always some issues which are confusing.

I thought I’d send them a query about a rule – and you have to sign up to their site, okay, I guess that keeps the spam down.  So I started the signup process.  They needed the regular stuff, username, e-mail, date of birth.  My postcode?  Filled them all in – then, three, security questions and one additional question you might get asked on the phone, all required so they can prove who you are if you forget your account details.

Come on.

It’s a forum user ID.  If I answered those questions they’d know more about me than the bloody tax office.  Anyone who did manage to get access to my data would know enough to convince other people they were me.  It’s not like WoTC are running a banking operation or something like that.  I just wanted access to their forums and the option to mail them a rules question.

Clearly, I just made up answers to the questions that I’ll remember but that aren’t true, in fact to simply things I just picked the same answer to all four questions even if it made no sense.  Reducing the point of them having multiple questions.  Sometimes you can have too much security.

D&D 4e – Creating Encounters

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I tried my hand at creating an encounter last night using the guidelines in the 4e DMG – and I have to say, I found it a lot more intuitive than it was in v3, and none of the random guesswork and knowledge of creatures required in 1st and 2nd edition.

We’ll see how it plays out when the party meets the bad guys.   I can see that it could turn out a little formulaic, but then it’s based on a formula so there’s always going to be that risk, the difference will be how well a DM can turn things around to give the same results without always ending up with the same encounter structure.

I created a 4th level encounter for a party of 5 1st level characters, which makes it a pretty tough encounter.  I love minions, in older versions of D&D you’d end up to 2 or 3 tough creatures and the fight would feel small, with 4e the encounter has 11 creatures and feels much larger and epic even if 6 of those have essentially 1hp.  I tried to make sure the terrain played a role, giving the enemy cover and adding some terrain which slows movement, and then picking creatures which could take advantage of that (don’t want to say *too* much since my players are reading!)

I certainly feel more confident that the encounter will at least be appropriate, without having to test it too hard or run through too many details, and that leaves me more time to think up exciting situations and more encounters.  I’d love more electronic tools for doing this, but I’m not going to pay Wizards for theirs, I may have a go at putting some basic creatures values into some spreadsheet tables and just giving myself the option to quickly build encounters and add the XP totals as we go, which is the only non-creative hard bit.

I may post the encounter was the players have defeated it.

HeroQuest!

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I loved HeroQuest, even though I never really got to play it enough.  I have several versions, and some expansions, in various states of repair, and that means I have a lot of plastic mini’s that came with the game.  I’d mostly forgotten about them until last week, when I was wondering about getting some figures for our D&D sessions.  It suddenly occurred to me I probably had enough stashed away (I wanted something durable, and lightweight that we could chuck about on the battle map and not worry too much about) so I collected them all up and yep, there’s loads.

Mostly unpainted though – but I set about fixing that.  Finished up all the zombies (8 of them), and decided to start on the goblins (since both myself and Chris need a lot of zombies and goblins in the games at the moment).  I asked Grete if she wanted to lend a hand, and she did, helping paint her first miniatures.

Here’s the resulting goblin hoard (I base coated them yesterday so they’ve gone from nothing to game-ready in 2 days).

Goblins!
There’s 18 of them all-together including one I painted years ago.  It’s a superfast paint job, base coat, wash, dry brush, clothing, wash, drybrush, detail.  But it does the job for miniatures you’re going to be gaming with.

Now, if only I knew where to get the 4 red dragons in hard waring plastic resin I’ll need for the next game … 😉

Scaring your players

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How do you scare the players in your D&D campaign?  Tell them you thought you’d paint ‘a couple’ of miniatures ready for the first encounter of the next session, and then show them this photo 😉

Bunch of HeroQuest miniatures

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

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There are major spoilers in this review, past the jump on the main page, but if you’re reading the article page or via RSS there will be no jump, stop reading now, you have been warned.  You will not be warned again.

We took the chance to see X-Men Origins: Wolverine at our local Showcase De Lux (sic) in Derby.  The sound and picture were really good, the leather reclining chairs were okay (not as comfortable as we’d hoped), the service and prices in the bar were shocking (prices not so surprising, service disappointing).  Combined with the price and the cost of parking (during the day) we’ll probably stick to the premier seats in the Nottingham Showcase.

Anyway.

I thought X-Men Origins: Wolverine was okay.  The movie tells the story of the (apparently) most popular X-Men member, Wolverine.  Unfortunately, a lot of that was already covered in the first few X-Men movies, so there’s a little bit of repetition.  Sure we learn some new stuff (for people who’ve never read the comics) and we see a little back story about how Logan started out, and we get to see how he turns from man-with-bone-blades to man-with-adamantium-bones.  The problem is that there’s no tension.  Spoilers follow.

Continue reading →

Give a man a fish

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… and you feed him for a day.  Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for life.

I love that proverb.  In fact, I live by it.  Although I didn’t really know it at the time I was living that proverb at school and university.  I was trying to understand the things behind the facts, how we got to them, what they meant, why they were relevant, rather than memorising them.  You can expand on understanding into other areas, but basic facts are essentially dead and lifeless.

So anyway, I love the phrase, the idea behind it and I try and keep it in mind if I need to help teach things to people.  It often leads me to answering questions with questions.  I can tell you one thing for certain, if you believe teaching people to fish is better than giving them smoked kippers you will annoy people who are asking you for kippers.   Sometimes people just want a kipper, sometimes they just need a kipper and spotting that moment isn’t always easy, especially when you’re knee-deep in explaining how to fish.

My favourite version of the proverb is from a computer game (Baldur’s Gate, not sure if it’s 1 or 2),

Give a man a fish and he can eat for a day.  Give him a sword and he can chow down on the marrow of evil.

More colourful but essentially the same message 😉

The Deck – Day Two

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I had some work planned today (actual work overtime style) so didn’t expect to get into the garden.  However, the servers behaved and it took just under 3 hours (9am-11:30am) instead of the planned 5 (9am-11:30am), and I couldn’t resist getting the saw out and having another go at the deck.  I was feeling pretty positive and upbeat and that translated into a serious amount of work.  The deck is now gone, with Grete’s help, and we can finally use the garden furniture we bought several years ago without having to sit in the grass.  Now we just need to tidy up the metal brackets in the walls, sort out the wood that we have to leave in (it’s supporting a fence panel but needs repairing and protecting) and then see what we’re going to do with the concrete.  We’re looking at modular decking at the moment which you can just lay on top of solid surfaces.

Bubbles isn’t happy – but she’ll adapt.

From The Garden

Gardens and Decks and Saws Oh My!

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The people who built the deck at the rear of our house used regular wood (not treated) and regular screws (not the kind of things you should be using  outdoors), and so slowly the deck has rotted away.  We got a quote a few days ago for someone to take it away and replace it – £2600 or there-abouts – which is well out of our price range.

We knew there was a concrete patio under the deck, so rather than not be able to go out at all, we decided to get rid of the deck ourselves.

I thought I’d put up some pictures showing the history of our garden, including the start of the deck removal process.  You can check them out on Picasa over here.  I took up the first batch of planks using a regular hand saw, but man that was a lot of effort, so we popped out and bought a power saw.  That made it more – exciting – certainly.

I won’t tell you in full detail how we got the rails around the top of the decking down because it’ll only scare you as much as it scared me.

So much for me deciding I was going to have a lazy day playing Lord of the Rings, apparently I won’t let myself be lazy at the moment.

From The Garden