tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33508414419239297012011-09-28T14:11:29.032-04:00For me, 2009 will mark my 30th anniversary of playing Dungeons & Dragons. I have a lot of accumulated stories about this game (and others) over the years, so I decided to start writing them down. In the process of thinking that, it occurred to me that others 'might' be interested in reading them. So, begins this blog...Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.comBlogger381100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-66190934898582938882010-12-29T11:21:00.003-05:002010-12-29T12:37:31.407-05:00

Wow, I really meant to get back to this sooner.So, "When last we left our intrepid band of adventurers..." they were in the mountain town of Delve, and had just defeated some ice mephits who had been freezing the townsfolk... or they were just hanging around after the demon froze all the townsfolk. I guess I never did figure that out.I was away for this session. Probably on vacation at Disney

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-2060626948765221832010-11-24T13:00:00.004-05:002010-11-24T13:00:58.062-05:00

"When last we left our intrepid band of adventurers, they had just exited the Feywild through a Fairy Circle, and were confronted by the pixie, Widdershins." was how Craig started off our next session. He always started off our sessions with that line: "When last we left our intrepid band of adventurers...". I enjoyed that. It seemed to tie everything together. Anyway, Widdershins confronted us

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-43106275403258802492010-11-24T13:00:00.002-05:002010-11-24T13:00:40.649-05:00

So, there we were, stuck in the Fey Wild. All around us were huge briar patches that matched the size, shape and location of the buildings of Barston. We met up with Toni's elf ranger then. I think she spotted the portal show up, or just spotted us. I believe she'd been searching for a way out of the Fey Wild ever since she crossed over via a Faerie Circle... but I can't recall exactly. Either

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-91638825474944449212010-11-24T12:59:00.001-05:002010-11-24T12:59:56.264-05:00

So, after our group was expelled from Barston by the village elders, we camped outside the town in order to figure out what to do.During the night, during Zorenthiel's watch in fact, we were attacked! Shambling Mounds! This is where I started to see how the group functioned a bit better. The previous sessions, we were all trying to just figure stuff out, so there was a bit of scrambling, and a

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-5136329567693286602010-10-31T12:28:00.002-04:002010-11-24T12:59:09.627-05:00

So, after quitting that first game, I joined Craig's 3.5e D&D game, which ran on Saturday afternoons. Before I joined, the group consisted of mostly characters who were from, or connected to, the village of Lorrik's Haven.Pate - A male half-orc cleric/barbarian who has, being an orphan, dedicated himself to the protection of children. He is very popular among the village's younger residents and

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-15183801561183117662010-10-31T11:05:00.006-04:002010-11-07T11:41:53.899-05:00

"Why do we fall? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up." Bruce Wayne's father, Batman Begins.Before moving to Atlanta, the last tabletop roleplaying game session I played, if I'm remembering correctly, was back in 2001. It was a rather unpleasant experience, since it was a first attempt to have my wife, Caroline, get into D&D. She'd wanted to play for years, and my friends were starting a new

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-5032776786375953992010-08-10T16:20:00.004-04:002010-10-26T08:05:04.012-04:00

I attended GenCon this year(2010), and it was the first time I could make it. When I found out that Wil Wheaton was going to be there, and he'd requested that people at the con give him dice, so that he could prove the theory that you can't have too many, I decided to give him one. As the idea fermented in my head, I came to the decision to give him a very special die. The following is a

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-71178995034906602342010-05-22T12:34:00.005-04:002010-06-08T15:32:15.863-04:00

I've decided to just "let it go", regarding the format of this blog. It's here as a collection of my memories, not a chronological account of my gaming.Speaking of which, I remembered something the other day about playing Alron, and this was something of the inspiration to drop the reformat, as I wanted to post about this now!So, it was early on in my adventures with Alron. We had cleared out the

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-87756344354242928752010-05-11T15:29:00.003-04:002010-05-11T15:32:22.022-04:00

I have set up my new blog. You can find it at: http://always-a-gamer.blogspot.com/As I work towards reorganizing this blog, I will be posting new material to that blog.

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-49934957331719172382010-05-09T12:45:00.000-04:002010-05-09T12:46:20.215-04:00

Hello to anyone reading this blog,I am currently looking to revise the order of this blog, to put it more in chronological order. I'm sure it's fine, and noone out there has any complaints about how I've written it so far, however I strayed from my original intent, and it's likely an anal-retentive thing, but that bothers me. heh. :)I am going to start a new blog, though, about my gaming

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-34893949667682257622009-11-02T15:32:00.005-05:002009-11-02T20:26:57.441-05:00

Okay, I let that go a little longer than I should have.I sort-of ran out of stuff to talk about, though. I was thinking of going back and re-organizing a bit. I had a style... a plan that I was following to start, and I went off track from that. It's a little disappointing that I couldn't keep it up. Oh well. Maybe I'll do the reorganization again and alter things a bit, but I'll keep the content

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-502531041840447482009-09-02T18:44:00.003-04:002009-09-05T22:42:04.208-04:00

So, the part that I forgot while writing the previous story...I'm taking a guess that this was after the ogres, but before the drug dealers and druid and elves.Alron was captured by orcs. I don't remember how. He was unarmed, so it likely wasn't difficult. He was taken away in a caged cart, to an encampment. When they arrived there, the orcs started herding people out... oh right, I just

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-46553072421278635812009-08-23T18:37:00.005-04:002009-08-25T20:23:22.050-04:00

You know, I think I forgot a part between the werewolves and this, but it's hard to remember exactly where it went in the sequence of events, so I'll just go into it later.So, as I said, Alron left with his troop of elven archers, and they made their way to the camp of humanoids. Scouting out the area, we found that the prisoners were all chained together, and guarded by an ogre and a bunch of

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-71293893961680386342009-08-18T18:50:00.002-04:002009-08-18T19:08:29.047-04:00

Okay, so Alron had run away from the werewolves, and found out shortly thereafter that he was a wereboar. Not as glamorous as a weretiger, or as powerful as a werebear, but at least not evil, like a werewolf. Still not an ideal situation, though. He quickly headed south, so that he could find somewhere civilized to get cured.He was making good progress, he thought, until suddenly he blundered

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-27679175418207387862009-07-10T15:28:00.003-04:002009-07-10T16:05:49.527-04:00

Ah puns. Aren't they great? What? They aren't? Really? Well, okay.Anyway, this was fairly early on in Alron's "career of pain". We'd finished the Saltmarsh trilogy, and the town counsel awarded us with a house on the outskirts of town. It was someplace we could use as a base of operations.Steve drew up some basic floorplans, but it was really nothing fancy, so we started making plans. Dig out the

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-19029649215329074822009-07-01T23:11:00.003-04:002009-07-01T23:39:35.667-04:00

I was playing Alron, the Archer/Ranger. The rest of the group, as a reminder, was Sarek, the half-elf cleric, played by Mike... Richard, the human ranger, played by Jonathan... Milamber, the human magicuser, played by Francis... Zoroaster, the half-elf fighter/magicuser, played by Joe... and a halfling... I dunno... jester or something... played by Francis' girlfriend, Jen.So, our group was

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-71121887709709641342009-06-30T19:00:00.002-04:002009-06-30T22:04:35.192-04:00

I own a lot of dice.I still own every die I have every bought, I believe. There may be a few incidentals that got lost here and there, either left behind at a friends or rolled under a couch, never to be found, but for the most part, I still have them all.The die that is the avatar for this blog is my very first twenty-sided die. It is quite worn.I retired that die after I used it to kill a

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-35191734279604799302009-06-20T21:28:00.007-04:002009-12-13T13:10:16.804-05:00

I've played Dungeons and Dragons the longest, and most consistently, of any of the roleplaying games that I've played, but my favourite game, ever since I first played it, was Gamma World.If you're not familiar, it's a post-apocalyptic game, where you play humans and mutants trying to survive in the ruins of civilization. It is hundreds of years after the apocalypse, with much of the knowledge of

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-10864669084437101152009-06-13T16:40:00.005-04:002009-06-13T17:57:57.281-04:00

So, back in Steve's big campaign, I had moved off to Edmonton, Mizraith being my last character before I moved there, and when I returned 6 months later, I took on a new character... Thorn Greenwood, human cleric of Teutares.Teutares is the god of nature in Steve's campaign world, and instead of druids, he has his clerics. They abide by the same rules as clerics do, with a few of their own

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-88951511849726900512009-06-08T20:21:00.007-04:002009-06-11T12:46:09.167-04:00

Wow, taking a look at the previous posts, I inadvertently covered a lot of time there.So, let's take a step back, shall we?Back in highschool, Steve gathered a few of the regular Games Club people together, the GOOD players, and he put together a dungeon for us to play through. We made up some characters... I think maybe 5th level or so, maybe higher. I rolled up a gnome illusionist/thief and a

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-2404055283213071732009-06-04T19:44:00.006-04:002009-06-07T21:43:06.537-04:00

It's amazing what I'm recalling for each post in the blog so far, but this is stuff that I legitimately remember about my gaming days. It's all fairly fresh in my mind. However, I find it equally amazing what it's bringing back to me.Back in highschool, I got a job at the Domino's Pizza down the street from my house. Early on there, I overheard one of the drivers, Todd, saying to the manager that

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-78999373749425980312009-06-01T14:52:00.008-04:002009-06-07T21:37:26.414-04:00

Okay, in talking about Laarde, I forgot to talk about what I really started that post to talk about...My involuntary switch from tabletop to online play.I'd migrated my Star Wars game to online when I moved to Ottawa, since my players were all back in the Toronto area, and I think that went fairly well. We played via IRC (Internet Relay Chat). We would all sit down at our computers on Sunday

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-34616284376544862422009-05-31T18:18:00.010-04:002009-06-06T22:22:36.280-04:00

I was going to say that Adrianna was the last character I played in person, until I moved to Georgia, but I just realized there was one character after that... Keneda Matsumoto. That was my Akashic Brotherhood character in a Mage game I played with some friends while I was living in Ottawa. I only got to play him for a short time, we played only a few sessions before the Storyteller quit. He was

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-91256148762938603092009-05-24T14:53:00.006-04:002009-06-29T09:59:18.678-04:00

Okay, so, fairly early on in my relationship with my wife, when we were still just boyfriend/girlfriend, we were walking through the mall, talking about various stuff, and probably discussing D&D in at least some small way, and someone set off one of those security alarms at a store entrance. This brought back a memory of a D&D character of mine that set off one of those, and caused me to chuckle

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-65548972710124531022009-05-17T23:28:00.009-04:002009-05-18T10:17:47.529-04:00

When Steve and I were still in highschool, we were both members of the Games Club.Steve started up a couple of D&D games with the members of the club, both of which failed miserably.I'm uncertain which of these was first, and which was second, but I'll tell them in the following order...We were playing a group of rogues. Everyone rolled up a character that was at least part thief. I think my

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-45615804453451587102009-05-15T22:56:00.005-04:002009-05-17T20:06:40.840-04:00

There's one rather prominent character in Alron's life that I have neglected to mention so far.I'm fairly certain that it was after The Final Enemy (mostly because I can't recall Fang being along with us for what we had to do in that adventure). The group was walking by an alley in town and we heard what sounded like someone getting beaten up. Investigating, we found a big guy lying on the ground

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-39606856575335269432009-05-14T13:52:00.004-04:002009-05-14T18:12:34.923-04:00

So, continuing on again from last time...It turns out that the very next session, only session 1 of this transition period, we happened upon several damsels in distress, surrounding a knight that was lying on the ground, apparently wounded. Sarek went up to help the knight, while Zoroaster and Bishop went to "talk" to the girls, and Richard, Milamber and Alron hung back, skeptical about the whole

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-63748162079768592212009-05-14T12:35:00.006-04:002009-05-14T14:36:54.552-04:00

To continue,Alron was now 500 years into the future. He still had his really nice magical bow, and his funky floating mirror-shield. And now, rather than it just being me playing his whole group, I actually had a group of other characters to play with! Steve has ruined solo adventures for me. I never want to do that again. :)So, when he first dropped into the future, he ended up in a tree, and

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-68969196339168329682009-05-12T21:53:00.008-04:002009-05-15T23:46:23.227-04:00

Thinking back at what Alron has been through, the title of this post seems rather appropriate.Oh, first, because I made you wait while I had Steve take some pictures of the old miniature we used for Alron, I won't make you wait to see it...It was fixed a long time ago, but for most of the time, the tip of Alron's nose was gone. The miniature has a very small base, and thus any nudge of the table

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-21405795781750258752009-05-10T17:43:00.001-04:002010-01-10T14:39:31.265-05:00

Okay... the worst adventure...Now, I'll preface this with something:I've worked with the author of this adventure module, Lenard Lakofka. He's a really great guy, and it was a pleasure to work with him. He even put Caroline and I into his latest module because I did a LOT of work for him to transcribe an old magazine article he'd written about creating magic items, for which he only had fuzzy

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-20020160117947846512009-05-09T11:11:00.001-04:002010-07-02T23:15:55.429-04:00

I don't remember much more about my gaming experiences in gradeschool. I know we played a few other games... Star Frontiers, Gamma World, Palladium Fantasy (then, just known as "Palladium", since the company hadn't produced any other games at the time), Champions... I think there was one called Thieves' Guild too... a little independently produced game.Star Frontiers was fun, but it was more

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-77997717076442131882009-05-05T16:22:00.005-04:002009-05-06T11:04:17.182-04:00

I've talked a bit about Alron, I figure I should go into why he's my favorite character. This is the second iteration of Alron, I mean. The first iteration was pretty good, but I don't remember enough about him to really go into it.Partly, it's mechanics. Partly, it's what he'd gone through and survived.By mechanics, I'm talking about his stats and what his class can do. When I rolled the

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-51340289280637276252009-05-01T20:42:00.002-04:002010-01-10T14:24:56.257-05:00

Player:1. Randall Forrester (2008-) - 10th level Human Ranger (4e)2. Aurik (2008-09) - 9th level Tiefling Wizard (4e)3. Serellian Leaflord (2008-09) - 5th level Elf Paladin (4e)4. Rokan Ironfist (2008) - 2nd level Dwarf Fighter (4e)5. Geldan Kamarov (2007-08) - 13th level Human Fighter (3.5e)6. Zorenthiel Moonshadow (2007-08) - 3rd/4th/2nd level Elf Cleric/Sorcerer/Mystic Theurge (3.5e)7.

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-50669384800101284392009-04-30T13:54:00.007-04:002009-05-01T13:00:01.255-04:00

There are a few different "types" of Dungeon Master that play the game. Now, for those not-in-the-know, the Dungeon Master is the person who runs a specific game of Dungeons & Dragons. The players each have one character (or possibly more) that they control in a specific game, and the Dungeon Master controls all the other characters (called Non-player Characters), all the monsters, and pretty

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-25189709652681305442009-04-28T13:41:00.002-04:002009-04-28T16:03:33.680-04:00

So, I made mention of devil worship in my last post.For those of you haven't heard (and if you're involved in this game, it'd be a shock to me if you haven't), there has been a long-standing tradition for the religious right to attack roleplaying games as being the works of Satan. My mother was one of the followers that fell for their fear-mongering.Truly, there have been some disturbed people

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-59272001995231833312009-04-27T13:09:00.006-04:002009-04-28T12:52:00.893-04:00

Only a short time after I started playing D&D, new books started appearing on the shelves. The Players Handbook, The Dungeon Masters Guide and The Monster Manual, all under the title "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons".Advanced! Damn, I had to have that! I bought The Players Handbook, and poured through its pages. Now you weren't just a class, but you had a race and a class. There were new races... the

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-34143251619436696052009-04-26T12:01:00.001-04:002009-05-01T10:57:52.153-04:00

The version of D&D that we were playing was this one... These days it's referred to as "The Holmes Edition Basic Set". A gentleman by the name of Eric Holmes took all the information that was in the original, now called "Classic", D&D boxed sets that came out a few years before, and compiled all the info into this set. This was the first set to be called "Basic Dungeons & Dragons". At the time,

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3350841441923929701.post-30920518169853421672009-04-25T22:56:00.000-04:002009-04-26T11:31:07.891-04:00

100 years ago the sorcerer Zenopus built a tower on the low hills overlooking Portown. The tower was close to the sea cliff west of the town and, approximately, next door to the graveyard. Rumor has it that the magician made extensive cellars and tunnels underneath the tower. The town is located on the ruins of a much older city of doubtful history and Zenopus was said to excavate in his

Scotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12742055439149978091noreply@blogger.com2