The Pink Dice Chronicles

Ranier reports in this week for our 7th session: That stupid Thasillonian snitch was back this week and the news was not promising.  Pajar was back and the paladin got taken.  I was happy to see Pajar.  Another fighter appeared -- one that spoke Thassilonian and not common.  Interesting.  It seems she was stuck in there for 2000 years.  I hope Dante doesn't meet a similar fate. We started poking around the corridor when goblins attacked.  Sol took a bad hit and then decided to get out of the way.  Pajar seem to have quite the knack with magic, blasting away goblins with flames from his hands.  Jericho kept firing off shots and making progress against the enemies.  My scimitar served me well. Pajar has quite a sense of humor.  Our rotund oracle, after being missed by the goblins calls out "You can't hit the broad side of a barn -- that was my nickname in grammar school -- broad side of a barn." We found sleeping quarters for ...

My latest project is making maps for my Shadowrun game.  We are always using the same settings (or at least, setting types) over and over again, so I thought I'd go ahead and make some maps for them.  These use $1 sheets of black foamboard for the base.  I then glue cardstock and construction paper (also only $1 for a big pack) onto the fomboard.  White strips form doors (just like in the Shadowrun maps).  Black strips form walls.  I use green to indicate grass / dirt areas around buildings. On the left is a Eula's place called V-Worx.  It is the local hacker bar.  On the right I have another building and Cathode Glow, a hacker bar in the city.  I have a few more buildings to add.  Oh, and it needs furniture. Here's the standard warehouse I use a lot.  It has plenty of doors, a set of table and chairs in one corner and some office / living quarters up above with stairs leading up.  Skylights above are marke...

We've been using miniatures quite a bit for out Shadowrun game, so I picked up a few toy vehicles to use in the game.

Here's the latest update from Ranier: After last week's massacre of goblins, it was time to take a look around.  It turned out the goblins weren't heavily armed -- they had just camping gear.  The paladin was torn up a bit about it, but Jericho reminded him that these were goblins.  I wish I could feel bad about it -- it just doesn't bother me anymore.  Goblin aren't innocent.  Nobody over the age of 10 is innocent anymore.  We pretty much all deserve to bite the dust.  The cruel joke is that once you get to that age, you're probably going to live long enough to regret it. We continued on through the thicket, this time losing Pajar to the old Thassilonian hummingbird (his player was out).  We found a deep hole that reached down to the ocean level with some terrible roaring creature in it.  We went around it.  Maybe we'll check it out on the way back. Axle and I were working together nicely this week, backing each other up on lookin...

Another report from Ranier: Well, we finished clearing out the dungeon space today we found below the glassworks.  It was good karma that brought the Oracle and Paladin back from the ether.  We finished searching the room where we killed the quasit.  Pajar found some gold and a scroll.  I couldn't get my eyes on the scroll.  Axle found a couple of potions -- a potion of hiding and a love potion.  Axle got the potion of hiding and Jericho the love potion.  We didn't like the look of the magic pool, so we covered it with doors from the room per Jericho's suggestion.  The doors disintegrated and fell into the pool.  We left it behind to finish exploring. Past the statue room we explored the last corridor.  Stairs lead to a room with a dark pool.  Past that we found a set of collapsed stairs leading up, that we reckoned probably lead up towards the lighthouse -- a set of local Thassilonian ruins.  Not surprising since these rui...

I was reading this article over on Voices in my Head . In this case, the writer is chalking up a slaughter of a PC to a difference of play styles. In this case, a PC walks straight into a group of orcs known to be killing everything in sight. They smile, pull back their bows, and fill him full of arrows as he tries to approach them to use diplomacy. The line in the whole story I find most interesting is the player's response: "Player 3 – Well you should at least let us try diplomacy. You should run this differently." This type of scenario is what I call a "Clash of the Helpless".  The GM sees himself as helpless to resolve the problem, because the player didn't pick up on the hints he gave.  The PC sees himself as helpless, because he tried something he thought was reasonable, and the outcome was not reasonable or expected.  If this were the first time I'd seen this pattern, I wouldn't have a name for it. I believe the problem in this ca...

Here's the quick summery of our last Shadowrun.  I think I'm going to start writing these during the game, to make it easier to remember. The crew pulled together the T-Bird security unit to look like something from Ares.  Only one thing missing -- the weapons. Vee had a relevant contact, since she used to be in to that sort of thing.  Still, she brought along Mr. Black to do the deal. The meet was at an old warehouse.  Inside, the guy making the deal was inside a pickup truck with bullet-proof glass and a little gas-station style talk-through window. Mr. Black negotiated a good deal to get the weapons in just a few days. The finished T-Bird had a pilot and copilot and a guard seat in the back.  The pirsoner compartment could easily hold two people (even troll-sized).  Void piloted the T-Bird.  Mr. Black was the co-pilot. Weldon took the guards seat.  Vee and Ender sat in the prisoner compartment. On the way in, there was a security pass...

Check out this article with armor for animals.

So here is this week's report from Ranier: We started with breakfast at the Red Rusty Dragon.  It was exploring day for the newly opened tunnel below the glassworks.  I stopped in at the temple to talk to Vasque.  He didn't seem to know much of anything about ruins that could be below the glassworks.  He pointed us at the man that lived left of the lighthouse. Strange thing happened... I noticed a glint off of this pillar in the temple as we were leaving.  It turned out to be an ancient Thassilonian pillar.  The point the glinted had a small stone spot sticking out slightly, perhaps.  I pushed on it, and a little golden fly ball appeared.  It floated about and then touched the paladin and oracle both on the foreheads and they disappeared.  After a moment even the gunslinger disappeared.  I tried talking to Vasque about it, but he seemed skeptical at best, and perhaps though me crazy.  While leaving the temple, Jericho reappeared...

At my Tuesday game, I really liked the character concept Scott came up with.  Pajar is an oracle with the oracle's curse of lameness.  Instead of having a bad leg, however, he is just very overweight, which affects his ability to walk.  When I found the balloon boy mini in the dollar bin this weekend, I just knew I had to try to make a mini for Pajar.  I emailed Scott for a description, and he let me know he wore mostly gold with magenta and blue accents.  In play, I had already learned of the turban he wore and the mace he used. (Click to embiggen pictures) Top Left is Balloon Boy So balloon boy got disassembled, glued to a 1 inch washer, and I added a mace.  The mace started out as a large warhammer, but I cut the two hammer heads off, and it looks very mace-like now. Mounted, with a mace, and some paint starting to layer. Now balloon boy was plastic and molded with color which made getting paint to stick a challenge.  I wou...

I came across another light d20-like ruleset tonight that I really like:   Microlite20 It's everything you need to play in a few short free OGL PDFs. It might make a nice Roll20.net game. Another link... 2012 collection with hundreds of pages of Microlite20 games .

It's been a few days on Shadowrun, so here is the bullet point summary of last session. Weldon talks the party into taking him in.  They load up and flee the incoming Ares patrols. Spinner is of no help.  It looks like the job is an Ares job and Spinner isn't going to help them double-cross Ares. They are looking for the guy that Weldon looks like.  It turns out he works in Ares. They are formulating a plan to get a security T-bird and fly it into Ares to let Weldon do his thing. Void and Vee track down pieces of a T-Bird of the proper style Mr. Black gets a job at Ares flying security T-Birds. During his first mission, thanks to Weldon, the T-Bird shuts down.  Ender gets in through My. Blacks commlink and pulls the data they need from the T-Bird so they can get past Ares security. Mr. Black goes back to base but gets fired when they find the security breach. Vee and Void are tracking down high explosives to make sure they can get back out of Ares after W...

One of our FLGSs has a bucket of miscellaneous minis for $1 a piece.  I like to raid it now and then, and today I got a good hall. Here are some minis I'll use for regular Pathfinder.  It includes a large floating rotund man, a goblin riding a dinosaur, a humanoid bat, and some sort of flowery humanoid.  I play to rework the rotund man into a miniature for Pajar. The second batch will be handy for the steampunk genre, including an alchemical zombie and a potion salesman. The last batch was the best find -- a much of minis suitable for use in Shadowrun.  We have a couple of large armed trolls, some guys with guns, a decent mini for Vee, and even Mr. Black / Mr. Johnson.

So the rogue (Axle) and I (Ranier) has somehow lost the shiny armor (Dante whose player was absent).  There was a note that indicated that Amico was supposed to meet her brother, presumably at the glassworks the night before, but she had not returned.  We were going to check it out, but I wanted backup.  No way did I want to walk into another goblin ambush with just two of us.  The note indicated Amico's father, who owned the glass works, had something to do with what was going on, and that meant goblins. We went to the guard house / jail.  One lonely guard was left at the desk, keeping an eye on things.  There were no guards to be spared with the sheriff gone.  We headed on to the Hagfish where he indicated there might be a merc looking for some work. I'm not a big fan of mercs.  People that are paid just don't have the loyalty to the cause to keep the rest of us alive.  We walked in and approached the bartended and asked about the merc,...