Nuadha's Tale

Ignorance can be tolerated, where reason is left free to combat it. -Thomas Jefferson

Sunday, March 31, 2002

Nuadha

"The name of Nuadha creates a dual nature, on the one hand, you desire change and varied experiences in order to avoid monotony, and yet you are attuned to system, order, and attention to detail. You can be very analytical, exacting, and patient in your undertakings until your interest is exhausted, at which time you switch to something else even though it means leaving your undertakings unfinished. This name makes you inquisitive and scientific in your approach to life, requiring everything to be proved to satisfy your skepticism. You can be a stickler for detail, and very fussy and particular.  This name creates strong physical desires."


What Flavour Are You? I taste like Menthol.I taste like Menthol.


I am refreshingly different; some people don't appreciate that. My sharp honesty gets up some people's noses, while others really enjoy it. I am something of an acquired taste. What Flavour Are You?

Friday, March 29, 2002

Tenchi and Comics
I re-watched Tenchi Forever while organizing my comics tonight. I don't collect many comics these days, but I haven't been putting them away for months. I just haven't had room in my comic boxes for new comics. So, tonight I went through them and set some in the "giveaway box." Currently the only comics I have been buying are The Spectre, Green Arrow and JLA. I occasionally pick up a Batman or Superman comic.

The Spectre has been my favorite these days. In the old days, Jim Corrigan was the Spectre and he was a ghost who avenged the wrongfully murdered. It was a cool concept and under certain writers it really worked. (My favorite Spectre series was the 80's run where Corrigan and The Spectre were seperate entities and they would argue about the ethics of the Spectre's vengeance.) The current run has Hal Jordan as the Spectre and he has changed the role from a Spirit of Vengeance to a Spirit of Redemption. The writer on the new series, DeMattais is doing some amazing things with the character.

I've also been on a Jack Kirby kick for the last year. I really like his writing and art from the late 60's and early 70's.

Thursday, March 28, 2002

Chainmail
Against my better judgement, I went out to play Chainmail on Monday night. I was still tired from AC, but it was the last night of the second season. I won again. I only lost one game the whole season. The Ogre Mercenary/Gnoll combo I played first season slaughtered everyone else, so I decided to play elves this season. Everyone was saying that elves suck, so I figured if I played elves noone would call me "cheesy" player. My warband focused on the one strength the elves have: ranged attacks. I bought as many archers as I could, threw in a warsinger to boost morale and a ranger to lead. The resulting warband was harder to beat than the Orge Mercenary combo.

Wednesday, March 27, 2002

Video Games
Transylvania is safe. Dracula has been defeated once more. I beat Castlevania: Circle of the Moon last night. The ending was lame.

Tuesday, March 26, 2002

Ambercon review
OK. Sunday night I was just posting to complain about some of my pet peeves. Now for the full review, in case you care-

Slot 1 - Exalted
This game was cancelled because the GM left stuff at home and didn't feel prepared. This bugged me...a lot. All of the other games were filled so this caused a bunch of people to lose a night of gaming. He should have just ad-libbed something, but instead he gets the pre-game jitters and quits. I'll make sure to not sign up for one of his games next year. I don't want to risk it. One of the players in the Exalted game jumped in and ran a diceless game of 7th Sea, which turned out to be a pretty neat game for a last minute replacement.

Slot 2- Big Trouble in Little Shadow
A fun game, but too much time was spent on the puzzle and not enough on the roleplaying. (see Sunday's post) I liked my character a lot. I created him just for this game. He's an Amberite who is sick with a mysterious illness that seems to have no cure. He is so weak that he was unable to walk the pattern, so he has compensated by throwing himself in to the study of Trump Artistry.

Slot 3- Flotsam & Jetsam
KG did a good job as GM. The plot suffered a bit from the puzzle problem, but otherwise was fairly good. This was an elder's game. My first choice was Bleys, but he was already taken, so I took Caine. The game was set just after the Patternfall. I chose Caine because I saw him as a very easy one for me to play. He's got a lot in common with Alexander. He is sneaky and manipulative, but in the end he really is on the side of the angels. I think I did a pretty good job with him. I played up on the fact that he had let the family think he was dead for all that time. Then, in their time of need, he swoops in to save the day. Nobody says, "Caine! Thank goodness you're alive!" They don't thank him for saving the day. They just go on as if he never died (in their eyes). What's the point of going to all of the work to fake your death and save the day at a dramatically appropriate time, if noone gives you credit?


Slot 4 - The Heist
This was the first Throne War that I've ever run and I think it went really well. The characters were thieves trying to steal the Jewel of Judgement. Everybody schemed and plotted against eachother and I think they had a great time. Noone won, but a couple of people came pretty close. One character managed to sneak up behind King Eric while he was wearing the jewel. Unfortunately, she tried breaking his neck instead of using a knife or something. She had 5 pts in Strength. It didn't work. MD's character also came very close. Unfortunately, one of the other players shot her with a trump-powered pistol.

Slot 5 - Mercy & Forgiveness
This was MK and KL's new campaign, a sequel to last year's "Into the Abyss." I played Alexander's son Anoki. Raised in a native american-like society, he is a strong, noble man who acts a spiritual leader for his people. He has taken an active interest in helping Brand raise his children. I look forward to next year.

Slot 6 - Morpheus Calling
I took the game in a different direction than I planned and the was different than what I planned, but I actually think it was better than what I planned. The players managed to sneak in to Castle Amber and Morpheus redrew the Pattern. I'm thinking of doing a follow-up next year, "Morpheus Interrupted." We'll see. I already volunteered to run next year's costume LARP.

Slot 7- The Dreaming City
It went great. Once again, I changed the ending at last minute, but that was necessary because of one of the rules I added. Players were able to spend two glamour to act as a temporary GM telling me what they found when they searched for clues. Since the game was a mystery, I had to change the outcome so that all the clues made sense. It was a lot of fun and a great challenge for me as well as the players.

That was it. I didn't play in slot 8. I'd like to thank Liz for running the con. She did a wonderful job.



Family
I talked to my dad and the kids tonight. The girls sound happy and my dad sounds tired. He has some friends helping him, but two kids can be a handful and between the kids and the divorce, he has court cases every week for the next six weeks. My dad sounds different now. With my mom, he loved her and felt he needed to stay with her, but he wasn't happy and neither was she. I think that was part of the reason he became so socially... awkward. It's now much more pleasant to have a phone conversation with him.

Sunday, March 24, 2002

Ambercon
The con was a lot of fun and all of my games were (I believe) successful. Out of the games I played in, I enjoyed MK and KL's game the most. With two GM's, MK's style of game works a lot better and the players and GMs all did a great job. I wasn't sure that I wanted to play in this and find myself commited to an annual campaign, but in the end I think it was worth it.

I have decided that I do not like plots where the characters have to solve some problem that makes their abilities useless until they figure it out. Many of these gaes don't have many NPC's, so the players have to keep looking at eachother saying "Have we tried this yet?" I played in two games like that and while I enjoyed myself, I could have enjoyed myself much more. Sometimes you need have a few exciting NPC's so players can talk to them, wondering if perhaps they are the villian or if they have the clues they need. Without any NPC's in these games, you knew that your fellow PC's were in the dark with you and there wasn't much roleplaying where you try to get the answers out of them. These games are exercises in problem solving, not roleplaying. The GM's for these games did a good job of running them, but the concept of their game makes it tough to enjoy them if you're not a player who enjoys solving puzzles or if you were more interested in playing a certain character concept that doesn't try to solve puzzles.

Gamemastering Character Concepts
What can I say? Roleplaying is on my brain. I was thinking about the one game I played in and realized that the big thing a lot of GM's miss out on is catering to the character's concept. If you have a game where everyone can make their own characters, then they will create and want to play concepts that may not fit in to what you were planning. Many GMs just run the game as they planned, not adding anything or changing anything that allows the player to play the character they enjoy the way they want to play them. I don't try to be like that. I like to try and cater to what the player seems to want. This doesn't mean I scrap my plot, but I alter it a little and try to put in at least one scene where the player or character is in his or her element. For example, in "The Heist" JT built a combat monster named Alec. This guy was not the best at being sneaky, but excelled at fighting. Since the game was built around thievery, there was a point where Alec was sneaking around and ran into someof the elders. He was caught and beaten down. I could have left it there and had his character rotting in the dungeons. After all, he had failed at stealing the Jewel of Judgement and was captured: fair enough. However, that would have sucked for JT, since his character would have never done what he was designed to do. So he regained consciousness as the guards of Amber where dragging him to the dungeons of Kolvir. He had a great scene as he fought his way out of the dungeon. JT made a character based on Warfare because he wanted to play a character that fights. That was his concept. By working in a scene where he got to fight, I think he enjoyed the game more than he would have. Meanwhile, the sneaky lying characters got to lie to people and the sneaky cat-burglar types got to creep around Castle Amber. Everyone made a character they wanted to play and it's important if you are the GM to let them play those characters. Don't try and force them to become the characters you wanted in the story, like too many GMs do. (edit- I typed this out the other night and I was really tired from the con. It was filled with typos and poor grammar. I just tried cleaning it up, but I didn't change the content.)


Tuesday, March 19, 2002

Images
I don't know if its a problem with how I'm tagging the images, something with blogger or Geocities, burt I've noticed that sometimes the images I'm putting up are visible and sometimes they're not. It's starting to bug me.

Changeling
Played with the scanner during my morning break. This is Buck the Pooka and his buddy Nall. He was a PC in a Changeling game I ran in Fort Wayne. I use him these days an NPC.

Monday, March 18, 2002

I'm back.
I was sick most of last week, so I didn't feel up to posting. I felt better on Friday, but then had a pretty busy weekend.

Ambercon
Emailed my character to the GM for "Big Trouble in Little Shadow." I'm really excited about this character. I was going to play Alexander, but I decided to make up a new character instead. also designed my version of Caine for one of the Elders games.

I've almost done preparing for the games I am GM'ing. I am doing a lot more preperation for these games than I usually do. (Usually I just have some ideas in my head and maybe a few names on paper.) I hope it pays off.

Changeling
We played Changeling yesterday. I was reminded of what, in my opinion, is the advantage to dice. Drusilla (MR's character) had done everything she could to prevent something from happening and probably would have suceeded, but through the random nature of the dice, something that neither Drusilla or myself as the GM had planned for happened. A vampire Dru was trying to help failed horribly to keep her "beast" under control and gave in to hunger. This made for a really neat scene with Dru dying and the others trying to save her with Glamour. The scene would never have happened if it weren't for the dice roll.

Work
"You hate your job too!? Wow! You know there's a support group for people like us. It's called the bar."
-Drew Carey

Tuesday, March 12, 2002

Being Morpheus



When it comes to being mysterious, that's what you do best. You like to leave others puzzled and speak in riddles. You're not out there for the fame and fortune, you're just being yourself, doing what you do best. You're strong and courageous, and you're always the leader of the pack. You're skillful; people respect you, and you respect people.



Sunday, March 10, 2002


What Beatles' song are you?

Ambercon
I did some more work on "Morpheus Calling" today and I am really excited about it. As I hammer out the details, I am getting more and more excited about this game. I had my first player character for the game sent to me last night and I think the character will work out really well. I went over to CC's tonight to see the trumps he is drawing for the games. He is drawing trumps for all of the pre-gen PCs in "The Dreaming City" and two of three main NPC's in "Morpheus Calling." Sometimes it is good to have talented friends, no?

Changeling
I have decided to put together a website for my Changeling game. It probably won't be something too fancy, but it will nice to have a place to post character journals, game summaries and illustrations. The campaign is almost over, but I am sure I will follow it up with another game, which would then be part of the site.

Saturday, March 09, 2002

Blog
I am already seeing a difference in my writing. I can't say that the quality has improved, but before I started blogging I would often blank out on what I wanted to say and be unable to write. These days, I am feeling much more comfortable writing. Now to work on the quality....

Friday, March 08, 2002

If at first you don't succeed...
Jubei

Jubei
I'm figuring out how to add images to my blog, so...
Here is a drawing I did of Jubei, one of my characters in NC's Champions campaign.

Roleplaying
Damn it! I just accidently erased yet another post! It's getting late, so I'm not typing it up again. It was just a description of tonight's Champions game and some Ambercon related stuff. The highlights were- "Thanks Liz, for the compliment" and a quote from tonight's game-

Quantum Ghost, trying to break up a fight between Lilly (my character) and Cowboy with plastic explosives: "How much C-4 can I 'safely' use on them?"

Only in Champions...

Wednesday, March 06, 2002

Liberal Fanatics
I love This Modern World. I used to read it in The Metro Times. Now, thanks to the internet, I can read it whenever I want. When it come to political satire, This Modern World ranks up there with Doonesbury and Bloom County. (Bloom County, how I miss thee.)

Religion and Politics
As the saying goes, last time people got burned at the stake. Here's a good article about it. It gives some more information about the Pledge of Allegiance and Graham's connection with the Papa Bush.

Skies of Arcadia
Ah, the life of a sky pirate...sailing the open skies...fighting monsters with by best gal by my side. Alas, it could not last. Carla has returned home and just as Arcadia calls out for a new hero, she is needed in her own video game realm.

my night
After work, I came home, borrowed a neighbor's ladder and fixed (as best I could) the siding on the front of the house. The people who put the siding on the front of the house didn't trim the strips of siding very well and the wind blew a piece out. This has caused the siding to buckle in the front so wind can catch pieces of siding,. Because of this, the siding is cracked where the nails were in one area and it has been flapping in the wind. I would have fixed it on the weekend but the ground was to mushy for the ladder.

After playing Tim Allen, I kicked back and played Skies of Arcadia until Smallville came on. Skies of Arcadia, a video game for the Dreamcast, got terrific reviews that compared it favorably to the Final Fantasy series. So far, it's living up to the reviews. The Smallville episode was a repeat, but one I missed the first time around. It adds "Shaky Guy" to young Clark's rogues gallery. (The rest of the Rogues? Bug-boy, Fire-man, Cold-boy, Eats-people-girl and my favorite, Superboy.) I am so glad that the newer episodes seem to have gotten away from the "Villian-of-the-Week" formula the show had in the beginning.

Ambercon
I sent the email out to the players in "Morpheus Calling." I look forward to seeing what characters people decide to play. Hopefully, I will send out the email to "The Dreaming City" players tomorrow.

Tuesday, March 05, 2002

Chainmail
Season two of the Chainmail League started last night. I played two games. I won two games.

"Battles are won by brave men or brilliant plans. Luckily, I have a brilliant plan."
-General Custer

Books

I found out from a guy at the Chainmail league that Robert Asprin has finally returned to writing the Myth books. (This came up because I've nicknamed the Ogre in mt warband "Big Crunch.") It took long enough. I gave up on seeing another book years ago. The last book left off with the cliffhanger. One of the main characters was dying. That was 15 years ago. Well, I guess we still aren't going to find out if he survives. The new book, Myth-ion Improbable is actually set between the third and fourth books. However he promises in the introduction to have another Myth book out later this year.

At Carla's suggestion, I am reading Bordertown. She thought it would help me get the feel I want for "The Dreaming City," one of the games I'm running at ACUS. She was right. The book has given me plenty of inspiration.

Sunday, March 03, 2002

Ambercon- The Heist
I wrote some detail on the game to send the players-

Plot: The game starts during the reign of King Eric.
The second anniversary of Eric's coronation is
approaching and the nobles of Amber are preparing for
the annual party. Amber, the greatest city in all of
creation is also the home of the greatest thieves.
Some have travelled to Amber from distant shadows.
Some are natives. There is no official "guild" for
these thieves but it's good business to keep in
contact with others in the profession. The Floating
Vagabond, an Inn by the docks has become the
unofficial meeting place of the thieves, at least the
ones that haven't made too many enemies amongst their
peers. Big Solly, the owner of the inn, has one rule.
If you're gonna kill someone, do it outside. When the
game starts, the PC's will be at the Floating
Vagabond.

Character creation:Characters will be built on 50
points. This will be a throne war (of sorts), so to
keep in line with the competitive nature of the game,
there will be an auction. The auction will be for
certain special advantages that may help you in the
scenario. I will send a list of the abilities out
shortly so you can get an idea what you will want to
bid for. Advantages will include contacts, special
items and information. A few of the advantages will
give abilities to the two highest bidders with the
higher bidder getting the better version. (Example-
the two highest bidders for "Friends in High Places"
will each get a contact. The high bidder's contact has
more political power.) Only the high bidder(s) will
have to pay the character points, since only the high
bidder(s) will get the advantage. Once the auction for
the advantages is finished you will be able to assign
your remaining points on attributes, powers and
good/bad stuff.

Powers No Logrus or Exalted Powers. (Not that anyone
would have the points to buy exalted powers.) Only one
character will be allowed to buy Pattern Imprint and
that character would have to win an auction for the
right to buy the power. Characters with Trump Artistry
will own a trump deck. These trumps can be of other
PCs, places in shadow that the character has been
before, or contacts that the character has won in the
auction. The player should give the GM a list of up to
10 trumps the character has at the start of the game.

Items: Items can be created according to the rules,
but will have to be apporoved. Please email me with
the item's description and the cost you believe it
should be before the game. Characters are assumed to
own basic equipment like weapons, rope, etc.

Stuff: There will be no limit on stuff but I
wouldn't recommend going over 15 points either way.
Think carefully about the character you want to play
when deciding wether to be a good stuff or bad stuff
character. If you want to play the care-free rogue who
has, through luck and charm, always managed to stay
one step ahead of the authorities than you should save
some points for good stuff. If you want to play the
guy who has had to work hard for everything he has
ever accomplished and the only breaks are the ones he
makes for himself then take bad stuff. Warning: I'm
not limiting stuff, but if you take too much, don't
whine when it backfires on you. Like I said, fifteen
points or less is reasonable.

Player Contributions: Bring a trump of your character
and you will get 5 more points to build your character
with. I will send a detailed description of the
advantages before the con.

I disagree


Take the 100 Acre Personality Quiz!

"Alexander's not evil. He's just hungry."
-Simone

OK. Alexander has become a much darker and more tragic character than I ever wanted him to be. Training with Nestor, the black knife and last night's actions have built him up to be the perfect villain. Now, I have played evil characters before as a GM, but never before as a player. It's scary. As a player, I know his actions are wrong. In character, I feel completely justified. When I have GM'ed characters like him, I am only in character for short periods of time.

I have denied it for some time, but after last night I have to admit. Alexander is evil. He works hard to repair the pattern and tells everyone that he wants to see Amber restored. He does. He wants to do it himself, so he can control its power. The reason he works so hard at it right now is because he knows that if he doesn't do it quickly he will lose his chance. If Merlin and Colette do it, they will probably do it without him and he misses his chance.

The only saving grace of Alexander is his love for his family. (Simone, Jules and Philip.) Alexander has a strong bond with his full brothers and sisters and even a fairly strong bond with his half brothers and sisters. (Of the half brothers and sisters he feels a strong loyalty to Renee, Colette, Merlin and Henry.) His bond to these family members is far more important than his hunger for power. There have been times in the past that he could have greatly helped himself by betraying these family members, but he would never have thought of it. In fact he would probably take the proverbial bullet for any of the before-named family members.

Methuselah's Children
Sebastian is dead. Alexander stabbed him and fled into shadow. I, the player, know that Alex has made a horrible mistake. He has made Veronica (Carla's character) a bitter enemy. He has used he knife to draw Sebastian's Psyche into himself, which will probably have dire consequences. Worst of all for Alex, very few in the family will trust him now. They have no reason to fear him, but they will. At least one will hate him.

Corwin should have spoke to the family before releasing Sebastian. He could have tried to calm everyone down and convince them to give Sebastian a chance. Instead, he let Veronica convince him to release him from the sword. He was placed in the sword for his own protection, not ours. Corwin released him into a world of enemies and to completely doom him he took away his one defense. He let Alexander, who made it public knowledge he planned to kill Sebastian, spy on them with a pattern lens. When Sebastian was alone, Alexander struck. He didn't expect to be able to cross the shadows. He expected that Corwin or Bleys had a way to block the shadow from Alex's travel. Why else would they let him spy?

Friday, March 01, 2002

Miniatures
I stopped at Ryder's Hobby Shop in Ypsi on the way home today and they have started stocking Confrontation. Confrontation are some of the coolest minis ever but since they are imported from France they are very hard to find in the U.S.. I picked up a Wolfen miniature which I plan to use in Chainmail as a Gnoll. He looks a lot like a Garou in Crinos form. (Translation- a werewolf from the Werewolf RPG in the half man-half wolf form) I'm thinking about painting him up as Samildanach, an NPC in my Changeling campaign. Samildanach is an albino werewolf who has decided to set up camp in Birch's junkyard. He was born and raised as a wolf and is very uncomfortable in human form.

Last one. Really...


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Which Star-Crossed Marvel Lover Are You?

X-Men
This one had some amusing questions. Unfortunately it only had about eight of the X-Men characters. When I used to read X-Men I identified with The Beast.
Remy LeBeau
I'm posted by James @ 9:41 PM 0 Comments

Understanding Alex
Sometimes I don't understand my own characters. In MK's Amber game I play Alexander. "Hangs out with the wrong crowd" is probably the best way to describe Alex. The son of Corwin he was raised on an Earth created when Corwin created his pattern. When he was about 16 he ran away from home. At that time the date was about 1918 CE. He started running numbers in Harlem. Later, he moved to Detroit where he smuggled Rum from Canada. He worked his way up the ranks of the mafia quickly. Eventually he was shot down by Feds in an ambush that to this day he believes his brother, Sebastian was responsible for. He "miraculously" survived the shooting and was sent to jail. While in prison he found religion. More to the point, he discovered several of them. He studied many of the religions of the world.

Eventually Alex left "the box." He travelled to the Courts of Chaos to find someone to teach him how to shapeshift. Alex had learned Shamanism on the shadow earth and had been a natural at shapeshifting in his vision-quests. He wanted to be able to shapeshift for real. He apprenticed to Nestor who also taught him about the Logrus and how to feed off the emotions of others. Alexander had become a form of psychic vampire.

Alexander can be a bit of a contradiction. One minute he is very spiritual, the next he is ruthlessly executing his enemies and enjoying their suffering. Last night, Carla and I were watching "The Sopranos" an there was a great scene that helps explain Alex. Tony Soprano was asked by Dr. Melfie if he thought he would go to hell. Tony told her he didn't. He isn't the type of person who goes to hell. She asked him what king of people deserved hell. He said murderers, child molesters and all the "real sick fucks." He's not like that. He's a soldier and he's in a war. The people he kills are also soldiers. They know the risks when they get involved.

More stupid personality tests
Most of these tests don't really tell you that much about yourself, but I keep taking them anyway. However, Troll is probably a perfect fit for me.


Which Action Star Are You? Find out @ She's Crafty


What kith are you? Find out here.