Tag Archives: roleplaying

I spent the weekend in the Mines of Moria

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Well, technically I spent the weekend in the surrounding parts of Eregion, but I certainly did step into Moria eventually.  The first full expansion of the Lord of the Rings Online has been released – The Mines of Moria.  I was pretty excited, I’ve always loved Tolkien’s dwarves and the body of lore they spawned in fantasy games like D&D, Warhammer, etc.  I tend to end up playing dwarves in many of the fantasy games I play, and the character I spend most time on in Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) is a dwarf (guardian).

There’s something about the Mines of Moria that fills me with wonder and excitement both in Tolkien’s writing and in the movies.  It’s no surprise therefore that I was looking forward to this expansion for the content alone.

Since the initial release there has been a massive amount of free content released for LOTRO including entire new areas, hundreds of new quests, thousands of new items, recipes, and lore.  So you can bet any expansion you have to pay for is going to have to contain vast amounts of content to keep people happy.  Moria’s content covers a cross-over area Eregion (in Eriador), which leads into Moria and finally into Lothlórien (both in Rhovanion).  Eregion is a single ‘map’ location with four or five main quest areas.  Moria is a bunch of different map locations, each of which looks pretty big and enjoyably complex, although I’ve so far only seen the first area.  I’ve not been to Lothlórien so can’t comment on how large it is.

Each of these areas clearly have a huge number of quests and the Epic quest line has been updated to include the fellowship activity in the new locations.  For casual players like myself at least, questing is the core of LOTRO, with most equipment, cash and experience coming from quest rewards, so whether an area is any good depends a lot on the quests, how they feel and how much they connect you to the Lord of the Rings lore.

As well as the new content, the expansion brings an increase to the level cap of 10 levels (maximum level is now 60), two new classes (Rune-Master and Warden), new skills, deeds and traits appropriate to the new levels and Legendary items.  A new rank of tradeskill proficiency has been added (supreme) and new tradeskill resources and recipes required for that, additionally tradeskill guilds have been introduced which provide another source of recipes and require the gathering of guild reputation.

So, there’s a fair amount of stuff, and since both myself and Grete were still feeling pretty under the weather on Saturday, we decided to stay in and ‘play a little LOTRO’, which translated to spending most of Saturday and Sunday trying out the new content.  Here, in no particular order, are my general thoughts.

Fixes

The best ‘fix’ in the patch for Moria is that quest items no longer take up inventory space, they go into a special ‘slot’ against the quest.  This is really good news, as I said earlier the core activity in LOTRO is questing, and that results in bags half full of half completed quest items.  You can have around 40 active quests and if they all require you to gather some things it can soon get hard to manage.  The new system frees up a lot of inventory space which is tightly managed in LOTRO and makes questing less painful.

Classes

I briefly played with a Rune-Master, levelling a character to 8.  I’m always impressed with the classes in LOTRO, given there are two main archetypes (caster and melee) I’m always amazed that each melee or caster class has something unique to differentiate it from the others.  No two melee play the same, and no two casters play the same.  Rune-Masters use combat or healing skills, and the use of those skills builds combat or healing counters which either improve or prevent other skills in the fight.  For example, in order to use some powerful combat ability you have to amass combat counters by using lesser combat abilities, but some healing abilities decrease combat counters and increase healing counters.  Some healing abilities can’t be used if you have any combat counters and vice versa for some combat skills.  The net result of this apparently complex but actually simple system is that during any single encounter the Rune-Master has to specialise in damage or healing and probably won’t be easily able to switch mid-fight.  This unique slant made for some interesting choices even at low levels, and I can imagine the scope at higher levels is even greater.

I haven’t played with a Warden, but the combat mechanic appears to allow you to build special attacks by combining earlier attacks.  Unlike previous classes which have defined routes to certain special abilities based on their skills, this appears to allow a more flexible approach to building a wider range of special abilities.  Grete seemed to enjoy it at low levels.

Eregion

This location is the introduction to the new expansion and is entered via the Trollshaws.  With the exception of some fellowship quests in an instance full of elite creatures, I’ve pretty much done every obvious quest, and it was really enjoyable.  The area is split into four main quest hubs, each progressing in difficulty and all having horse masters.  A progressive deed allows you to obtain swift travel between the hubs, with initial travel being slow and having to be opened by visiting the horse master at least once (standard LOTRO approach).

The area is pretty open, with a number of ruins, some mountains and dry water-bed features and is mostly green (grassland, trees).  In the south-eastern part of the area is a location which leads to another small map which contains the entrance to Moria and has the Black Pool.  I like the open nature of LOTRO areas, they don’t usually restrict your movement by anything other than increasingly difficult creatures to get past, and Eregion is no different.  The one exception is that it’s not possible to gain access to Moria until you complete the introductory quests in the Epic line (carried out in the little area mentioned above).

The general quests in Eregion cover the whole range of normal quest activity in LOTRO, and other than being made more difficult by the huge number of people present in the zone were fun to do.

The access quest line for Moria is fun and designed to be done solo (in fact, two stages have to be completed solo).  They take place in a special version of the Black Pool area with a whole range of quest NPC’s and mini-quest dungeons.  Once you get past a certain stage in this quest line you can no longer get into the special instance area, even if you’re in a fellowship with someone doing those quests.  This is a bit of an issue (especially when we didn’t realise it would happen) because you can’t help your friends out.  However, the access quest is soloable and not too difficult, it’s the other unrelated quests in that area that are tougher and have some decent rewards that might be more troublesome when 200 people aren’t doing it at once.

Once you fully complete the quest, you gain access to Moria through a more general Black Pool area which I’ve not fully explored yet to see if the instances still exist as well.

The access quest is very atmospheric and without giving away too many spoilers you get to see some tentacled and flaming creatures of legend.

The rest of Eregion is populated with the usual range of LOTRO creatures, wolves, wargs, beasts, humans of varying evilness and origin, a new lizard model, crows and trolls.  My Minstrel progressed from level 48 to near 51 by completing most of the Eregion quests.

There are several key locations in Eregion that tie in with the Fellowship in the book, and they evoke enjoyable memories and make you feel close to the lore.

Moria

I’ve spent very little time in Moria so far, but wanted to give my initial impressions.  Wow.  Epic, huge, grand, amazing.  The entrance hall is epic and the subsequent locations are brilliantly visualised.  You get a real sense of the enormous scale of the place and the music is simply breathtaking.  If the questing and adventuring lives up to the visuals it will be fantastic.  We got totally lost three or four times trying to get from the entrance to the second secured location, and enjoyed every wrong turn.

Travel within the mines is achieved either on foot, or by goat ride between major locations once discovered.

Legendary Items

The biggest equipment change in the new expansion is the introduction of Legendary items.  Essentially, they are items which can be customised through the addition of relics, improved in power through the earning of experience and further customised by spending that experience on increasing special skill-based features on the items (like skill cost reduction, increase duration, increase damage, etc.)  The reward for the Moria access quest is a Legendary item and the quest involves learning how to improve it which is a good introduction.  Items gain experience through normal kills and through some quests, as well as via experience boosting dropped items.  The experience does not detract from the regular character earned experience, but if you have more than one item currently levelling they do split item experienced earned.

I won’t cover these in too much detail, suffice to say that they bring a big amount of customisation that some people will love and others will gloss over mostly, and increase the complexity and scope of high level characters.  I don’t know if lower level Legendary items will be added, although I suspect not from the lore given when you get your first one.  You’ll either love them or just cope with them, but you won’t be able to avoid them.

Tradeskill Changes

I have mixed feelings about this, because an early bug meant that my Dwarf Guardian had some of his earned tradeskill points removed and I had to spend 3 hours making things to get them back.  A new rank of tradeskill has been added (Supreme), which adds a new level of recipes and a whole new bunch of resources.  The resources seemed plentiful in Eregion, although there appear to be two or three ranks of new resources (this is different to previous skill levels), with the higher rank resources showing up further inside Moria and beyond only.  I do tradeskill more from an obligation to be at the highest rank, and because it gives some nice toys, rather than because I truly enjoy it, so I’m not the best person to review this addition.

I do like the introduction of tradeskill guilds, of which you can only be a member of one.  Each guild provides new recipes (mostly more efficient versions of existing recipes, or slightly better versions of the results) which have long cooldown timers.  They also introduction a range of guild token item recipes which are used either in the aforementioned new recipes or in gaining reputation with the guild, which is in turn required to buy further recipes.  The interesting angle here for me is that it provides a reason to go back and collect low level resources to make guild tokens and gain reputation.  Other people will consider it simply a straight time sink.

Conclusions

I’m biased.  I’ve loved the Lord of the Rings since I read the books.  I loved the movies.  I love the lore, the concept, the very idea of being within Middle Earth taking on Goblins and Orcs.  The Mines of Moria held special importance for me because I enjoy roleplaying dwarves, and the ideas of lost kingdoms, heroics and forgotten wealth inspire me.  There was never any doubt I’d buy this expansion.  With all that said, it had a lot to live up to, and so far it’s managed it quite handily.  Eregion was fun and challenging and the Moria access quest was interesting.  My first view of Moria was suitably awe inspiring, and subsequent exploration suggests there’s more to come.  The bug with tradeskills pissed me off at first, and I’m just about over it.  But it can’t quell the enjoyment I get from bashing orcs over the head and shouting Baruk Khazâd! Khazâd ai-mênu! with the iconic images of Moria all around me and the sound of drums in the deep.

RPG Systems I own

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Thought I’d write up a short list of RPG systems I still own, in the order I find them on the shelves I’m looking at.

  • Dungeons and Dragons Basic (Red), Expert (Blue), Companion (Green), Master (Black) and Immortals (Gold) boxed sets
    Played and run, a lot.  The first few years of my roleplaying were dominated by D&D.
  • Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (1st Edition)
    Mostly messed about with this.  I don’t have the Players Handbook, not sure I ever did.  I seem to recall we hacked some adventures together by mixing this up with the D&D stuff we did.
  • Call of Cthulhu d20
    Don’t think I ever ran this in the end, I preferred the original rules.
  • Judge Dredd d20
    Never played it.
  • The Wheel of Time d20
    Played it very briefly, didn’t really get into it that much.
  • EverQuest Role Playing Game
    Never played it, was too busy being addicted to the MMORPG that spawned it.
  • Star Wars d20 Revised Core Rulebook
    Never played this incarnation.
  • Call of Cthulhu Edition 5.5 (Softback)
    Loved it, lived it.  Played it (with a few superb GM’s) and ran it a few times.
  • S.L.A. Industries
    Never played it.
  • Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
    Played it loads, loved it a great deal, and ran it a few times.
  • Paranoia 2nd Edition
    Ran it a couple of times, once successfully, once terribly.
  • Legend of the Five Rings 2nd Edition
    Played it quite a bit, never ran it.
  • Dragon Lords of Melnibone d20
    Never played it.
  • Ars Magica 4th Edition
    Ran a game for a short while, pretty heavy going.
  • Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd Edition
    Played it more than anything else I’ve ever played.  Ran it more than anything else I’ve ever run.
  • Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition
    Played and ran it quite a lot recently.
  • Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 3.5
    Never used this incarnation.
  • Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition
    Playing it as we speak.
  • Shadowrun 2nd Edition
    Played and ran this version, liked it a lot as long as we ignored net runners.
  • Shadowrun 3rd Edition
    Never played this incarnation.
  • Middle Earth Roleplaying 2nd Edition
    Played it quite a bit, never ran it.
  • RUNE
    Never used.
  • Star Wars d20
    Played it a little bit.
  • Star Wars 2nd Edition (d6)
    Played more than the d20 version, and think it’s better.
  • Dungeons & Dragons Rules Cyclopedia
    I needed to own this incarnation of D&D.
  • Advanced RuneQuest
    Got this cheap in a sale, never had RuneQuest, never played 🙂
  • Vampire the Masquerade
    Never played.
  • d20 Modern
    Played a little bit.

So, my list of RPG’s

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After this blog post, which points to this list of RPG’s everyone should try, I thought I’d reprise the content of a post I made a long time ago (1998).  That post talks about games I’d played at the time, and a little bit about them.  Here’s my list of 5 games every roleplayer should play and why.

  1. Dungeons and Dragons (basic and expert boxed sets)

    You really should play the original D&D.  I’ve played all the versions, and while they all offer something different the raw simplicity of the basic and expert editions of the original boxed sets are just so refreshing.  Inconsistencies abound, but the scope is endless.

  2. Call of Cthulhu (original rules)

    If you get the right group of people and the right person running Call of Cthulhu, it has to be one of the best shared storytelling environments ever created.  The capacity to drag you in, gasping for breath amidst the knowledge of sure and impending doom, and still leave you wanting more is unparalleled, in my view.  The rules were mostly very simple and the environment was rich.  I’ve never enjoyed dying so much as I did when we played Call of Cthulhu.  I’ve never enjoyed torturing my players so much as when I ran Call of Cthulhu.

  3. Paranoia

    Done right, and it’s not easy, this game system and world setting provides the chance to really dig deep into some roleplaying muscles.  If your players are always trying to out sneak each other in regular game settings, let them play this for a few weeks to sort the sneaks out from the snitches.

  4. Shadowrun or Cyberpunk

    I never played Cyberpunk and I think the Shadowrun rules had some seriously major issues, but as a setting I loved it and I think every gamer should have a shot at Fantasy-meets-SciFi crossover ‘net running big blazing gun action every now and then.

  5. Gangbusters

    Because it was so simple and evocitive and engaging.  You should try it.

  6. Bonus Game – Xena & Hercules.Swords and Thongs, made to go together.

US presidential campaign in D&D format

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Found here, originally from here, and quoted briefly here,

MCCAIN: Oh my god, I did not leave my left nut in a tiger cage in the Tomb of Horrors to spend my Friday nights mopping up after the new kid.

and

MCCAIN: Yeah?  Bring it!  I didn’t spend 3 years in the Abyss with Githzerai hooking my nads up to a car battery to get beat by some Wellesley girl.

Check out the full post here.

D&D 4th Edition first two encounters

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We ran through a couple of encounters last night in our new roleplaying campaign.  First time we’ve used the 4th edition rules in anger, so all of us were a little slow and spent time referring to stuff in the rulebook.

I have to say, I was surprised it ran as smoothly as it did, the positional issues didn’t affect us as much as I feared, and provided a decent tactical element.  The use of powers instead of basic attacks is the real difference, and it certainly gave my character (straight forward fighter) more options during the fight, without having to rely on feats.  For example, my fighter has two ‘at will’ powers which are essentially regular attacks.  One (Cleave) allows him to hit a second target for a small amount of damage if he hits the first target, and the second causes minor damage to a single target even if the swing misses.  So depending on how many targets are adjacent to him, he gets to pick which makes more sense.

Also, we had a Warlord in the group, who has a power which provides additional damage to basic attacks so during one combat round I used a base attack to benefit from that.

All-in-all the combat seems ok, we’ll see how it ramps up.  At the moment, I still feel bereft without haste, multiple attacks, dual wield and stat increasing spells (Bull’s Strength!) which were such a strong feature of 3rd edition, but I’m sure we’ll get used to them not being there.

The two major things I learned yesterday about 4th edition,

  1. You don’t roll saving throws any more, they work like AC (i.e. they have a static value which the attacker has to beat).  This is going to take some getting used to.  You do still make some saving throw rolls, but they’re a straight d20 and succeed on 10-20 (I think), they’re used when you’re under the effects of spells (for example, sleep).
  2. Everything about combat has bigger damage numbers, and everyone has more hitpoints.  It’s going to take some getting used to.  In earlier editions not being hit was key early on, but in 4th edition everyone has far more hitpoints at first level, including the bad guys.

Oh, and being able to Shift in combat makes much more sense, it may only allow you to move 1-square at a time, but at least you can shift through the enemy without incurring opportunity attacks if you need to.

Rambling update

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Made it through to Friday, pretty tired today generally.  Lovely weather outside, bright sunshine, crisp.  Bubbles is out there somewhere baking herself in what are probably the last few days of warm enough sunshine.  She’s got conjunctivitis the poor bugger.  We’ve got some ointment to put on twice a day, she’s been pretty good about it despite the whinging.

Watched Fright Night last night after recording it on Sky+.  Classic movie, how on earth did we find those special effects ((special in the loose sense)) scary?  Not even sure why it’s an 18, I guess some of the more fleshy scenes are the cause of that.  Evan watching stuff like that the experienced is improved with the surround sound, we’re still really pleased with it.

I got sick of paying for a Sky Movies subscription and not watching anything.  It’s because we don’t sit in front of the TV these days unless we’re doing so to watch something we recorded, so I went through the entire week ahead and set 4 movies to record (Clerks II, Fright Night, Deja Vu, American Gangster) and I’m going to try and do that every few days and record anything I’ve not seen or not seen for a while.  Pan’s Labyrinth was on a week or so ago too, so recorded that and not watched it yet, and Hairspray was on Sky Anytime so I’ve ‘recorded’ that for Grete.

Still pleased with the 5.7% HbA1c result.  Found this nice little chart in case you wanted to know more about the test,

HbA1c
Normal/abnormal
Average blood glucose
4-6.5% Normal for those without diabetes 3-8mmol/L
6.5-7.5% Target range for those with diabetes 8-10mmol/L
8-9.5% High 11-14mmol/L
Greater than 9.5% Very high 15 and above

I bought a Marathon bar ((yes, yes I know, but I like living in the 80’s)) on Wednesday to eat after I got the results, either as a celebration or a commiseration depending on how the results went.  Celebration was a good option.  I never ate a lot of chocolate or sweet stuff before being diagnosed, but I did enjoy a Snickers bar every now and then.  Almost amusingly, they don’t have a totally terrible effect on my blood sugar because of the high fat content, but as you can imagine I’ve had about three since I was diagnosed.

Roleplaying tonight, 4th edition D&D, first time we’ve played (rolled characters up last week), so should be interesting.  Always takes a while to get ‘into’ any campaign, never mind one with a new ruleset so I’m expecting tonight to be pretty slow.

My good friend Simes blogged about some TV he’s been watching.  It certainly feels like the TV schedule has picked up, mostly stuffed with American TV.  The Fringe pilot was cool, the Burn Notice pilot was also interesting and we’ll be watching that to see where it goes.  We’ve got quite a wait for the new series of Criminal Minds sadly, but Bones is back on and is as good as ever (I think).

And I’ll leave you with this,

And I think Pirates would kick both their asses.

The era of instant feedback

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I think one of the greatest changes the ‘net has brought about, or maybe faster and more global communication has brought about, and which the ‘net is at the forefront of is immediate product / action feedback.

The feedback is so immediate that it starts well before the product even hits the shelves.

In the past, maybe a small core of fans and people ‘in the know’ would start talking about a new movie or a new game or a new book long before it came to light, and there would be a bunch of people who knew about it but the vast majority would not.  Even those who did know might not have any way of sharing their concerns or joys with the people producing their product.

If we look at computer games in the mid-80’s, there were plenty of monthly magazines which talked about possible games, and reviewed existing ones.  They had some letters pages, people wrote in, but the market was small and the hype about games was still confined to small groups of people.  People making the games may have read the magazines, but what impact could three or four fans have?

Sure there was Fidonet and bulletin boards, and I’m sure there was chatter in those locations about stuff coming up.  But the big change I think is when not only fans but producers of products started using the same medium for talking.  I’m not sure when it happened and I’m too lazy to go and do a load of reading around the subject, but if you skip to today you can see the vast difference.

Now, months before a product is even seen people are claiming it is rubbish or the best thing since Jet Set Willy.  Fans claim products have ruined their lives long before those products ever turn up.  Movies, music, games, technology and everything else you can imagine, lampooned, praised and analysed months before they arrive.

Once the product is actually in the market, the feedback is immediate and abundent (if not always entirely objective).  Prospective buyers can trawl Google for a thousand comments on a product that’s been out for a few weeks, companies get to see the impact of their product almost in real time.

It’s a big change.

I was thinking about this in relation to 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons.  Long before it turned up, when Wizards were leaking/revealing details, people were worried and claimed it would ruin the legacy of D&D.  Some people said it would be fine.  Within days of it being released the ‘net was covered in feedback.  I wonder how that differs from the release of the Master edition of D&D or even the first release of 2nd edition AD&D?  I wonder how companies handle that information, if they do anything with it during the production phase ((which clearly the company who made Snakes on a Plane did)) and the post-release period.

D&D 4th edition more thoughts

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We went through character creation last night with C&C and OneOther ((yeh, I hate when people use acronyms, nick names and aliases to hide identity as well, but I also like making sure I respect people’s privacy)) so I’ve got a little bit more experience with the 4th edition PHB now.  It feels a little chaotic and unordered, certainly during character creation you’re all over the place, reading stuff at the end of the book in the middle of character creation, etc.  Maybe it’s because we’ve come from D&D -> AD&D -> AD&D 2nd Edition -> D&D 3rd Edition and we just find the format sort of jars.

One thing that I did finally nail down – I keep thinking ‘bah I can’t find the rule on xxxxyism this rulebook sucks’, and then it dawns on me there is no rule[tm].  For example, I was really struggling to find the rules on multiple attacks – until of course it dawned on me you don’t get any.  Sure, if you have a power it may let you attack more than one thing at a time, but there’s no concept of native multiple basic attacks ((let me know if I’m wrong)).  Likewise haste, took me a while to realise it wasn’t there.  Two-weapon fighting, it looks like you just get a bonus to your damage, and you can swing whichever weapon you feel like, but never both in the same round.  So there’s a bunch of what I would consider core elements from 2nd and 3rd edition which have been removed (in the name of simplicity) and it takes a while to get used to it.

It also only dawned on me half way through character creation that during combat, you’re going to be using your at-will powers virtually all the time.  It’s going to be a rare moment that you decide (as a melee character) to make a basic attack.  For example, fighters get to pick two from four at will attacks which are basically all at least equal to their base attack but usually superior in some way.  There’s no reason you’d make a basic attack unless you’re forced to (opportunity attack for example).  As a fighter, you’re going to be cleaving (hit your regular mob, do small amount of damage to an adjacent-to-you target) or reaping strike (do damage even if you miss) for example.  I quite like this, but it’s clear where the source for this change comes from (more in a sec).

Without having fought any combat yet I can’t say how much I’m going to like the even more square-based positional tactical side of it.  A lot of the powers for melee characters (and some for casters) really exploit positional situations (adjacent creatures, moving targets around, swapping positions), and if you don’t run combat in a way that enforces and benefits from that positional element a lot of powers become substantially weaker ((DM’s are going to have to work hard during fights with lots of creatures to ensure the bad guys take full benefit of positional tactics, it’s a much tougher situation for the DM, imo)).  To me it feels like it takes away some of the freedom and imagination from combat; some people might say that it ensures everything is fair, but if the aim is to tell a collaborative story a good GM will ensure the combat is smooth, exciting, fair and still free.  However, we’ll see how it plays out.

The computer-based RPG (and MMORPG / MMOG) influences in 4th edition are clear.  Balanced classes, no absolute requirement for a cleric, the breakdown of classes into party roles (defender, leader, controller, striker, or tank, healer, crowd control and dps as most people know them), the idea of attacks based on powers rather than just swinging a weapon are all clearly derived from the recent popular MMOG’s.  This isn’t a complaint, it’s clear that Wizards are hoping players who have discovered roleplaying on-line will move to paper-based if they can find some common ground.  It’s just an observation.

The deep irony is that paper based RPG’s are really the grandfather of the modern online RPG.  It’s interesting to see that cross-fertilisation and see things come full circle.  Those of us who remember loading up The Bard’s Tale in 1987 on our Spectrums or C64’s will no doubt enjoy that.