Spending more energy elsewhere

I have been spending a lot more creative energy on my other blog lately than this one. I am going to be starting a campaign, hopefully on Thursday, that is play-testing rules (43 AD/Warband) that I may port over for use in my Garnia campaign world, and, given the history of that world, the events of that campaign could provide some more back-story for the entire setting.

I don't have anything else to say on that topic, so here's some stuff I got in the mail over the past few days that I forgot to show you all when it came in.

These guys are just "Arcane Legions" miniatures, they were labeled on EBay as "28mm hard plastic Roman sprue w/shields no bases"; why the deception? I don't know. I got them for $1.00 though and I should have known since I actually have the "Arcane Legions" starter set, I just never found anyone to play with. I did think they looked familiar.

"Creatures of Rokugan" for the 3rd edition of the Legend of the Five Rings RPG, I'd been waiting to get an inexpensive copy of this for a while, I was pleased with the result; although it inexplicably came with about 120 of the CCG cards too. I have now got two different two-player starter decks, a couple of one player starter decks and now these loose cards, maybe I should learn to play. You know, despite my disdain for CCGs. I mean if people are going to keep throwing them in as freebies with my wins on EBay...  

It's a good thing my Mail Carrier has a car.

To be fair, growing up in the country mail carriers always did, but for the years I lived in the city they had a car, but walked the block delivering the mail anyway, and I am pretty sure I'd have been left off the route today. Here's why-

OK, Greyhawk Adventures is post Gygax TSR, but it is still 1st edition and I didn't have a copy. I have read it before, back in the day, my buddy Darryl's dad used to buy him all the new books for birthdays and Christmas and stuff. My parents got religion though and cut me off, so I had to buy my own stuff, TSR quality dropped after Oriental Adventures (some might say before), so I spent my allowance money on stuff I could use; like Dragon Magazine and miniatures and new games.

I actually already owned a copy of this 2nd edition AD&D Celts book, but it was given to my by a friend who had bought it used and the douche-bag he bought it from kept the map and cut the monster section out of the book. Now I have a pristine copy, and I'll be passing this copy on to my buddy Darryl, who might use it as a resource for the Warband 1/2 of our dual 43 AD/Warband campaign.

OK, I know I swore off Legend of the Five Rings RPG stuff because no one else wants to play, but I already have the 2nd module in this series.

And these 2 books were $4.99 each.

These 2 came wrapped in a glittery cotton or polyester protective coat. I got the 1st edition book for Dalton, since I already have 3 and he was interested in the game maybe for his own group.

And this is a board/card game, so I can play it with my friends and family; it's only tangentially related to the RPG I want them to play with me. Plus, at 59.99 on the website, it's probably the most expensive game I own, via the MSRP. I got it for less than 1/2 that with free shipping!

Mostly About Books Today

I will come clean and admit that I spent the greater part of my day playing Crusader Kings, it's the first time I've booted into Windows in a long time, since November 11th of last year to be exact, but I needed access to some Windows only software that I own so that I could hard code srt files to avi files or other video formats. There is probably free software that does it better available for Linux, but I didn't feel like looking for it and then learning how to use it. I forgot that if you don't run Windows for a long time, and I forget this every time I go months without booting into Windows, that there will be something like two hours worth of updates and scans that need to be run before my computer is really available for anything, so I read for a while, while I kept an eye on my computer.

I've been reading more lately anyway, eastern philosophy and Asian history; not all Japanese stuff either, remember I am the Great Khan. Which leads me to the first bunch of books. I got this book-

at a local Salvation Army thrift shop one day while my wife was busy at a seminar at the County building across the street. I thought it looked cool and I had seen very little in the way of Mongol oriented fantasy. Now, reading novels is how I reward myself for doing research on whatever topic I happen to be researching at the time, and I happened to be researching the Mongols anyway and how I was going to make them work in a fantasy setting. So I did the Mongol history and some Mongol folklore/mythology/religious practices, then I figured I'd dive into this book and see this guy's take on it all. Then I realized it was the sequel to a trilogy, essentially the 4th book in the series, and I was mightily annoyed. So I went on Amazon; where I had just bought the Mongol research book anyway, and I ordered the whole trilogy.

And I read them, as it turns out, it was very helpful to have read them, and they are a self contained story that covers the rest of the fantasy Asia that the author has created. The story mostly takes place in the alt-China, but you roam all over the fantasy Asia and the main character of the "4th book" is a secondary character introduced along the way. They were pretty good though, so I am not too annoyed that I read them.

Next, I guess it's no big secret that I went from Legend of the Five Rings and Rokugan hater to enormous fan. I have been buying up old L5R RPG stuff and Clan War stuff like there's no tomorrow. I bought and read the Clan War novels last year. There was one for each major clan- Scorpion, Unicorn, Crane, Phoenix, Crab and Dragon. Some were better than others. Recently, as in a couple of weeks ago, I discovered a second series of L5R novels: The Four Winds Saga. So these have been trickling in for a week or so now, the last one made it here today.

Next on the list, Lowell Francis on the Age of Ravens blog did Samurai week this week with a very helpful recommended reading list for running a Samurai RPG. Since I am obsessed with remaking AD&D's Oriental Adventures right AND I have a mostly female gaming group I decided to hop on over to Amazon and go with the Tomoe Gozen saga that was recommended, I ordered yesterday and the first of three came today. Sadly it's the second book, but I haven't finished reading "Lords of Grass and Thunder" yet anyway. Remarkably quick shipping though, I didn't pay for overnight delivery.

Lastly, these came in the mail yesterday, but I'd already posted my blog. Some more old school WEG D6 Star Wars stuff I bought on EBay with conversion to WotC D20 in mind.

It's getting late now, gotta go.  

D&D Next, Dawn Patrol, and other things

First I'll write about the trials and tribulations I went through getting the D&D Next playtest packet, they emailed me on the 24th, I didn't get it until late on the 27th. Somewhere along the way my repeated attempts to retrieve the packet got my WotC account canceled and I had to set up a new one, I got to use the same email address, but had to change my screen name. No biggie, I don't hang out there anyway.

Saturday I went and played Dawn Patrol with Darryl Sr. and Darryl Jr., I had neither John nor Dalton with me, I fear they may not be interested enough in WW I aerial combat, or that their introduction to the game has turned them off to it. I guess we'll see next weekend. The game itself was short, two turns long.

Set Up: We rolled 2d4 to advance the calender to February 17, 1917, and I rolled the weather conditions while Darryl Jr. rolled up the mission and starting altitude for our flights. For the record- there was a negligible breeze from the south west, and one thick cloud bank running from 6,600'-7,100'. Both flights actually rolled starting altitudes higher than their ceilings, so we just started them at their ceilings. We were 99 squares inside French held territory, and the front was 108 squares wide. The French mission was a Fighter patrol, the German mission was photo-recon.

Darryl Sr. and I had drawn allied counters from the hat, and both ended up flying French Spad VIIs, he was flight leader with his Lieutenant Gilles Chenault and I was his wingman with my less experienced Serbian pilot (who had barely made it home last time) Sous-Lieutenant Vaclev Petrovic, flying our squadron's brand new replacement Spad VII, since it had only been a week since I returned my last Spad badly damaged.

Darryl Jr. had his pair of Vizefeldwebels Hans Grüber and Dirk Schmidt flying a pair of Roland CII's (AKA "The Whale") at 16,500' and realizing that he had: A- Two enemy fighters at 18,000' headed straight for them.

Turn 1: Unfortunately for the French, the Germans won the initiative roll and we were forced to go first. Lt. Chenault dropped to 16,500' and so did I, only facing towards him so the enemy would have to face fire from one of us if they chose to engage rather than dive towards their mission objective. Both German aircraft dove to 16,400' and lined up on Lt. Chenault's aircraft; from their slightly underneath position both the pilots and the observers guns, they all fired long bursts and they all hit, scoring a total of 9 hits on Lt. Chenault's Spad, spread out pretty evenly across his wings and tail. I fired an interrupted burst at the nearest plane, as it turns out it was Grüber's; but my gun jammed and I only got one hit to his tail.

This was the end of turn one, Darryl Jr. stated that he figured there was no way he could complete his mission if he had to dive to below 6,600' with two Spads chasing him, so chose instead to try and make a kill or drive us off, play a little reckless since he didn't think he had a shot at winning the scenario otherwise, and, metagaming a bit, both of these pilots had zero missions/zero kills so it was no great loss to him if they went down trying to be ballsy.

Turn 2: Grüber is forced to go first and dives to 15,000'. I go second and dive to 14,950' to get below Grüber's observer's gun, I miscount the squares and end up underneath Grüber rather than behind him in tailing position, I also fail to clear my gun jam. Schmidt goes next and over dives into tailing position behind me. Lt. Chenault also over dives and fails the roll to break-up (15%, he rolled an 01; yes, we heretics use percentile dice when playing Dawn Patrol instead of the d6% charts). Schmidt, having dropped into the perfect firing position for a shot at me with both pilot's and observer's guns, naturally takes the shots, hitting with both. My plane takes 6 hits, 4 to the Left Wing. My flight leader down, and outnumbered two to one in a fairly damaged aircraft, I decide discretion is the better part of valor today and disengage.

Post Game: We just assumed that the Germans dove below the cloud cover and compled their mission. Lt. Chenault miraculously survived his 14,900' crash landing, the plane was destroyed and he was wounded, but he'll be available for duty again on March 2nd 1917. Either Grüber or Schmidt is going to get credit for the kill, we already determined which one it was, but I forgot and it's not written on the mission logs I brought home with me so I could give a more accurate blow by blow report, and Darryl Jr. didn't give me his pilot roster either. I have everyone else's, so I can be the "official" experience point tracker. I also get to come up with names for all of the, until now, nameless, faceless, rank-less and experience-less Observers. Observers are people too, they can get better at their jobs.

Since we still had a whole bunch of time left over after our two turn Dawn Patrol game, I suggested that we play some classic MB Axis & Allies, because we used to love that game, and we were masters of it, and that's not an idle boast; at Gen Con in 1990 Darryl (Jr) and I, playing the Axis as a team beat the Allies on the second turn of the game. Now, we always play with one house rule and one recommended rule. Our house rule is that in a three player game the Axis is played by one player, not split up. The recommended rule is that Russia doesn't attack on the first turn, which is pretty standard. So one player plays Germany and Japan, one plays the US and USSR, and one plays Britain.

We each have our specialties, I am best with the Axis and worst with Britain. Darryl Sr is best with US/USSR and worst with the Axis. Darryl Jr. is best with Britain and probably equally bad with either of the other powers, which is still pretty good. We drew control counters from my hat and I got the Axis, Darryl Sr. got the US/USSR and Darryl Jr. got Britain, but he hates playing Britain because of the great length between turns, so his dad traded with him when he complained about how it always seems to be the same game we play.

This game did not go well for me, Russia had an unusually aggressive build of tanks and infantry on their first turn, the tanks were built in Russia, the infantry in Karelia, all but one of the infantry in Caucasus was moved to Karelia, all the infantry and the fighter from Russia were moved to Karelia and then they moved their transport to the British sea zone, to join the British fleet there, and their submarine to the eastern Canada sea zone to join the British transport there. Out in the Soviet east they shuffled all of their troops into the Yakut S.S.R., with the exception of the tank, which was moved to Novosibirsk and one lonely infantry left in the Soviet Far East.

My first turn German build is pretty standardized by now, I build a fighter and four tanks. From Italy I sent the battleship to clear the sea zone above Egypt and the transport with two infantry. My corps of troops already in Africa, I sent the one infantry that couldn't reach the fighting down int French West Africa, blitzed my tank through French Equatorial Africa into Anglo-Egypt Sudan and waited for the sea battle to see whether or not there'd be any more troops coming in; there would be but it cost me my battleship, the start of my bad luck on this turn. I fought the battle in Egypt and took higher than normal casualties too, all three infantry dead. I had sent two fighters after the British battleship at Gibraltar, I sank it, but lost a fighter doing it, about what is usual. I sent the German sub over to sink the American transport and lost that fight, which is pretty unusual, but happens. I sent the bomber from Germany over to sink the British transport (and it's Soviet submarine buddy), my bomber hit and they took the British transport as a casualty and retreated the Soviet submarine down to join the American transport. I sent my Baltic submarine and the three remaining fighters from the Luftwaffe to attack the combined British/Soviet fleet in the sea zone surrounding Britain, they were actually quite successful and I only lost the submarine, the British lost a battleship and a transport, plus the Soviet transport. I sent one tank from the Ukraine into the Caucasus and killed the infantry there, but the lucky bastard took my panzer out too.

But this was all just the precursor to my massed attack on Karelia, the tanks from everywhere except Western Europe could make it there, and the infantry from everywhere but Germany, I used the transport in the Baltic to take the two infantry from Western Europe and amphibiously invade Karelia too via the Baltic. That may be another house rule, we rule that only units that have been involved in an amphibious invasion cannot retreat, so of course they get to be the first casualties generally speaking. Anyway, the first turn of combat went OK, I hit slightly less than the odds said I should and the Russians hit me right about on the odds, so sticking around for a second round of combat was the obvious choice, the odds were still in my favor. Then lady luck deserted me, bad, and she left me for Darryl's Russians. I don't recall how horrible it was exactly, but I am not sure I had any infantry left at all when I retreated to the Ukraine, I am pretty sure I may have taken tank losses.

So I non-combat moved my infantry from Germany to Eastern Europe, and my tanks from Western Europe to Eastern Europe, landed my surviving fighters in Eastern Europe and my bomber in Germany; built my new tanks in Germany and my new fighter in Italy.

Then Britain went, they abandoned India to drive the German forces from Africa, they had no trouble taking out my tank in Egypt. They used their two fighters from Britain to sink my transport in the Baltic, of course I missed them on my counter-attack; then they landed them in Karelia to protect the Russians from another onslaught by my depleted forces. Then they built an industrial complex in South Africa and I forget what else.

My first turn build for the Japanese is pretty standard now too, an industrial complex and a transport. The complex is so I can start building some stuff on the continent and the transport is just to upgrade my shipping capacity. Being so obliged by the British departure, I felt compelled as the Japanese to simply walk in and take India, this was the high point of Japan's turn, and possibly their biggest mistake. I sent the tank from Japan on the transport with the battleship to attack Soviet Far East, the battleship bombardment failed, do they ever work? Then the tank missed and was killed by the infantry counter-attack, a sad and pathetic end to that amphibious invasion. I used the submarine, some fighters and the bomber from Japan to attack the American fleet at Hawaii and destroyed them with just the loss of the submarine. That was the end of my attacks.

I non-combat moved my other battleship and aircraft carrier to Hawaii. I also moved troops and fighters to Manchuria, to counter the Soviet threat, and then placed my industrial complex there and my transport in the Japan sea zone.

The US wasted no time, they sent their transport across the Atlantic and took Algeria, with a single infantry no less. They also attacked both French Indo-China Burma and Kwangtung, since I'd left them empty. Then they started building a Pacific fleet off the Western USA, presumably to challenge Japan's dominance of the Pacific, but I was willing to cede the Pacific to take Asia from the Americans, Russians and British.

Now, I have always said, one of the things that sadly can't be fixed, but really does suck about this game is that the Allies get to go twice in a row, and now it was Russia's turn to attack. I remember pretty clearly what happened in Europe, because it affected the rest of the game, Asia not so well. In Europe the Red Army replete with tanks and infantry smashed their way into the Ukraine, and it was a crushing defeat for the Wehrmacht. They may have launched an unsuccessful attack on Japanese positions in Manchuria this turn as well, trying to take out the industrial complex before it could start production on this turn. The loss to the Germans was huge though, that was every remaining tank they had started the game with, except for the one from Western Europe. After taking the Ukraine, he non-combat moved the anti-aircraft gun from Karelia to there, and the one from Russia to Karelia. He also non-combat moves his submarine through the Panama canal.

Germany's turn and the war wasn't going as planned. I built eleven infantry. I used my Mediterranean transport to pick up a single tank and land it in Caucasus via the Black Sea, the rest of my forces launched an attack into the Ukraine, the odds were in my favor and it would destroy a bunch of Soviet tanks, but I had six aircraft going into the battle and he had an anti-aircraft gun. The odds said he would take out one, I thought at worst two, but no, he shot down three. The odds no longer favored my victory, but I was stuck for one round of, what turned out to be, a very punishing combat. I retreated to Eastern Europe, much the worse for wear and built my eleven infantry in Germany. You all can see where this is going right?

Britain goes, they take French Equatorial Africa from Germany, and sink my transport in the Black Sea, I believe they then landed in Egypt where they built another industrial complex and a pair of tanks for the complex in South Africa. All things considered, they're actually moving rather slow and methodical.

Japan actually had a pretty good turn, I built a pair of tanks for Manchuria, and I forget what else. I landed infantry in Soviet Far East, successfully, launched an amphibious invasion into French Indo-China Burma, successfully and launched an attack against China from Manchuria, unsuccessfully, but not disastrously. I non-combat move some more infantry from the islands with my transports to the Asian mainland.

The US continues it's Pacific naval build up, but, in a surprise move, also builds an industrial complex in Sinkiang, his sole combat move is to invade Western Europe with that Cheeky infantry from Algeria, it's an unopposed D-Day landing, it's not that I didn't see that it could happen, it's just that the Russians were the bigger threat. To be fair, if they'd noticed, the British could have done the same thing to Italy on their turn, but they were focused on Asia and Africa. All remaining American troops in Asia are pulling back to defend Sinkiang, this includes, I believe, fighters that had been spending time in Karelia.

Russia gets to go, they build a bunch of stuff, probably tanks and infantry, the Soviet juggernaut is just unstoppable in Europe at this point, they smash their way into Eastern Europe even more easily than they did the Ukraine, they also send a minimal force, one infantry and one fighter I believe, to take out the lone German tank in Caucasus before he has a chance to have any behind the lines fun. Surviving Soviet troops from the east make their way to Sinkiang to bolster the defenses of the American industrial complex, the Soviet fighters no longer needed in Karelia, also join them. The Soviet submarine non-combat moves up to join the American fleet off the Coast of Western USA.

Germany Builds ten infantry. Six infantry are sent to attack the American infantry in Western Europe, they win losing two of their number. I non-combat move the remaining five infantry to Italy so it will have some defense against either the British or the Soviets. I place my ten new infantry in Germany. Surprisingly, Germany still makes, I think, 27 IPCs this turn.

Britain goes and finally takes Libya, they build some tanks and a transport. They are going slow, I think the old man is tired and he is missing a lot of easy things. He's 70 years old now and I think maybe we should cut him some slack, the counter argument to this though is two fold, first, he didn't cut either Darryl or I any slack when we were 12 and just learning to game and second, keeping the mind active is shown in studies to prevent Alzheimer's and other degenerative mental conditions. So maybe the fact that we haven't been keeping him competitive for the last decade or so has made his gaming skills rusty, maybe he is a little slower to think his moves through, he's the man that turned me into the wargamer I am today. I owe him. Anyway, he sends a bunch of fighters to Sinkiang too, it's going to be a tough nut to crack.

Japan goes and has a great turn, they take every objective they set out for, which, in my opinion, only puts them about two full turns behind schedule. the two tanks from the Manchurian factory blitz through Yakut S.S.R., splitting up to take Evenki Nat'l Okrug and Novosibirsk; infantry and fighters attack China and win. I strategic bomb the US for free! At some point I had consolidated my fleet around Japan, so it wasn't within striking range of the US fleet with their submarines. I build three tanks for my Manchurian industrial complex and I forget what else.

USA goes, I don't recall what they did, honestly, it was short and probably just built stuff in Sinkiang for our big showdown.

Russia goes they attack the two tanks bordering Russia with one infantry and one fighter in one spot and one tank and one fighter in the other, they win both battles and take back their territories, but the real deal is the invasion of Germany, Germany's luck holding about how it had been versus the Soviets all game, they didn't even inflict serious casualties on the invading force. Germany fell, I handed the Russians my IPCs, which I think is a broken rule, but that's neither here nor there; then I considered my options for about ten seconds and conceded the game.

So, Saturday handed me two losses in one day. Sunday was Lance's birthday, and I have to say, I get the impression he isn't happy or fitting in with my D&D group. Since he's been back to work he hasn't made it to a single game. Audra is his girlfriend, so I am pretty sure she is only coming to spend more time with him and check out his interests. Lee Ann just got a new job in the ER and is working 12 hour shifts, and doesn't always get Sundays off. John enjoys playing 4th edition with his buddies more than any edition here at home with his family, he particularly hates that his mom is the de facto party leader. Ember only ever wants to play if Lee Ann is going to be here to play too. Mona is usually always up for a game, but gets sick of having to herd the cats that make up most of the rest of the party. Ashli wants to play, but her medication makes concentration difficult and she often has to leave the table for naps. Dalton is pretty much always up for a game, but I have to pick him up, and if every other player is no-showing on me, sometimes I don't feel like it.

I guess I am in desperate need of a group of players that want to play some old school D&D B/X or 1st edition AD&D with B/X leanings in the central NY area. Oswego county would be best if I have to travel, gas prices being what they are. Weekends are best for me, but I am flexible and we don't really have to play at my house, in fact my house isn't really the best place to play, we just make due.

Every single game I have had scheduled since the end of March has been canceled for one reason or another, it's almost June. This is driving me crazy. I have two different campaign projects I am running/playtesting new stuff for, cancellations kill campaigns.

Anyway, I hope Lance had a good birthday and everyone had a good Memorial Day. I haven't had time to read through the playtest packet for D&D Next yet, I hope you all enjoyed my lengthy game play reports and here's some Ebay pics of stuff I got in the mail recently.   

I already had the Rokugan book, but not the other two. The price was good though so, I figure I'll just pass along the Rokugan book to someone else.

I didn't really think about it, but did they really need a specific "Way of the" book for Daimyo? I mean, it's not like they're a dime a dozen.

I also find it interesting that the highest and the lowest were bundled together, Thieves and Daimyo. What point was the seller subconsciously making?

OK, I haven't blogged in a few days

First my dad was in the hospital for the last day of the April A-Z challenge, which I guess means I won't be getting a spiffy award for completion this year; then I got sick with the same bug that's hit the rest of my family, I swear children are plague-bearers, this never happened to me before I had kids. After that I guess it's just the laziness about blogging that sets in when you skip a few days, it just gets harder and harder to get back in the saddle; you keep finding excuses. I didn't even have good ones, like "There's a bunch of work to be done outside!", because the weather has been so rainy here.

I actually figured when I got back to blogging it'd be either about my Mongol fixation or about my Oriental Adventures project, still working. I actually tried to entice my D&D group to get back to OA to playtest some of my new stuff, and I have been reading a lot of eastern philosophy, Asian RPG and Miniature game rules sets and novels set in Feudal Japan during my recovery from illness. Actually, the Mongol and feudal Japanese and eastern philosophy all kind of go together for the same project anyway.

On to gaming, we decided, since Lance's work schedule has made his attendance spotty, and since Audra is a new gamer and his girlfriend, so she really only comes to the games he does, and Lee Ann was in San Francisco for some reason; we'd give Star Wars a shot since it was a Star Wars holiday weekend (May the Fourth be with you, Revenge of the Fifth), although our game was technically on the sixth, so I guess you could extend that out to "Revenge of the Sixth"? Too much? Anyway, I decided to GM, despite my desperate desire to actually PLAY in a Star Wars game*. Like many decisions I've made in my life I put off choosing which system to use until the absolute last possible second, the moments leading up to character creation.

WEG D6 system lost out to WotC's D20 system for the sole reason that everyone in the group already knows how to play D&D, and has at least a little bit of experience with 3rd edition D&D. I also have more copies of the rulebooks to pass around for character creation. I went with the D20 revised edition, because I had more stuff for it, and I figured that it probably corrected some issues with the original core rules. My later research on the web seems to indicate that I was right, but that edition would have been a better choice still, but I don't have a lot of Saga edition books and they are stupid expensive on both Amazon and Ebay.

Anyway, I am still going to convert a bunch of my stuff from the D6 system to the D20 system, and a lot of the old WEG stuff is ind of rules-lite anyway. I am setting the campaign during the Rebellion, shortly after the destruction of Alderaan, in fact all of the current PCs are Alderaanians that just happened to be off world when the Death Star destroyed their home world. Now, we know that Alderaan was a peaceful planet with no weapons, yet it was still a hotbed of rebel activity. My take on this is that the average Alderaanian is taught to be like Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr., it's all about non-violent resistance, right? I figure that this diverse group of survivors, many of whom may have had pro-rebellion sympathies before their home world was destroyed by the Empire, decided to be a little less like Dr. King and a little more like Malcolm X. Passive resistance was no longer an option, it was time for a more active role in their resistance to the Empire.

All of the current PCs are Human, one is a Noble, one is a Soldier (just completed Imperial Flight School!), one is a Force Adept, I assume from some sect of non-Jedi sometimes Force-Sensitive religious cult on Alderaan, and the last is a Scout who had the wanderlust.

Next I got some stuff in the mail-

The Manor was a great little zine and I thoroughly enjoyed every page of it, which is something I can't say about any professionally produced magazine I have bought in a long time. I bought it the day it became available, and I have had it for a few days now, but didn't really get a chance to sit down and read it cover to cover until today. Well worth the money.

Secrets of the Scorpion. I know I swore off buying Legend of the Five Rings stuff as a New Years resolution, but it was such a bargain and I still hold out hope that I may eventually play that game. Plus I fell off the Ebay wagon pretty hard this month, indulging in all of my hobby whims pretty indiscriminately; perhaps not the best idea since my wife's birthday is Friday, followed by Mother's Day on Sunday.

Fortunes and Winds. Another Legends of the Five Rings Score, I don't even know what this book is about, except that I can ALMOST convince myself that it will be useful for my OA project because it is one of the Dual-Statted L5R 2nd edition RPG/3e D&D OA books.

Plus I have probably been thinking about Rokugan lately because my Lion clan just lost a major battle to the Dragon clan in the Emerald Empire game I play on Facebook.

*or a Star Trek game, or a D&D game, I am not picky.

April 29th is a break day in the A-Z Challenge

So I thought I'd write about a couple of other things that have been on my mind for the last few weeks while I have been doing all this Norse research work, which really wasn't all that hard for me because I am pretty into Norse stuff anyway. Next year though, if there is an A-Z challenge in April, I will think to pick a subject that has more letter options.

But I am digressing from my original point here, which was to NOT write about the Norse A-Z topic I picked this year and instead write about the other things that have been creeping into my brain during that time. First there's the whole Star Trek and Klingon Assault Group thing, both Star Trek gaming, mostly through Star Fleet Battles, but also a little through the FASA RPG have been a big deal for me and my game time in the past. The Klingon Assault Group, while it coincides slightly with the gaming, is another beast altogether. I want to recruit people to KAG, because dressing like a Klingon and acting like a Klingon is awesome fun; but I guess only if you are part of a particularly brave subset of Trekkie.

I have also been slowly working on my own realization of the 1985 TSR AD&D 1st edition Oriental Adventures book. I wrestle with some of the core ideas presented in that book, and I go back and forth over whether or not the book was too ambitiously focused on presenting an entire fantasy east Asia, while still being concentrated on Japan, or if they weren't ambitious enough and should have gone further in their attempt to include everything Asian with the same "kitchen-sink" approach they gave the western world with "regular" AD&D. As it stands, the book is a mostly Japanese game that could not decide on it's focus; was it going to be about court and intrigue? Those skills (sorry, proficiencies) were presented for the first time in any D&D product in the OA book. Was the game about serving a Lord or Clan or a Temple even? That's kind of implied in several class descriptions, but no real advice was given to the DM about how to make a well balanced party work together if it included, for instance, a Samurai, a Ninja and a Sohei. The "normal" adventuring paradigm of AD&D was broken in OA, and no fixed replacement was offered.

Add on top of that the fact that the game had a real issue deciding whether it wanted to emulate a Chanbara film or Ninja film or a Kung-Fu film and we have a problem. Many of the classes don't work well together, and, even if you are not a Monk, you can easily become a martial artist deadly enough to out class the party Samurai, as I saw in my last OA campaign when the Yakuza character took Tae Kwon Do instead of weapons proficiencies. The Wu Jen spell list is inadequate, and while I intend to reverse engineer that list from the 3e compatible magic books I snagged off Ebay that were designed for Rokugan and the Legend of the Five Rings Setting, I can only come to the inescapable conclusion, despite my love of 1st edition AD&D and my nostalgia for Oriental Adventures and the fun campaigns that I have played using those rules, that AEG and L5R were better conceived and better designed than the rush job that I suspect that 1st edition OA was. The best thing I can say about 1st edition's AD&D Oriental Adventures is that it is far superior to the abortion that was 3e OA.

There are gems in the 1st edition OA books, I have seen mentioned on other blogs recently the Yearly,Monthly,Daily events tables. The court game might have worked if they had separated out weapon proficiencies from the "peaceful" ones. The Samurai class might have been less the super class that it was if it hadn't gotten a requirement to specialize in two weapons, something BANNED to every other class. The Kensai, which should be spelled Kensei, needs a total reworking, it is a valid class idea, but screwing him over by never letting him wear any armor OR have a magic weapon of his "chosen" type blows. The two "Cleric" classes of OA both suck though, the Sohei is just a second class Fighter until finally receiving some spells at 6th level? The Shukenja (which should be spelled Shugenja) can't fight anything BUT spirits? Ninja as a "Split-Class" = dumb idea, easy enough to create a Shinobi class, I did it once and I can do it again.

Currently I am reading a lot of Japanese history, watching Samurai movies about the Sengoku Jidai era and reading books about the Samurai and Bushido written during the Tokugawa era, while I am not reading and studying up on Norse history and lore. Obviously, I think the focus of Oriental Adventures should be on Japan and Japanese history and mythology, more focus is better. This is why OA1: Swords of the Daimyo was such a good sandbox to play in, it ignored all of the other nations of Kara-Tur, except for brief mentions. I think every single copy of Oriental Adventures should have come packaged with that module, although the adventures presented are weak.

The other thing that has me feeling nostalgic is my old Steppe Warriors guild, I recently spruced up our Facebook tribute page a bit, and I tried to get in touch with some of the old guys that I lost contact with over the years. AOL's Neverwinter Nights did go offline in July of 1997, we tried a few other online games, even text based ones, but none had the awesome community of AOL's NWN. We weren't there for long, and the core of us were local to the Oswego county area, which is why it was easy for us to have our reunions, at least in the beginning. But I miss all those guys, even the ones I have fought with over the years; and it kind of makes me sad that I never did get around to playing that Steppe Warrior campaign that I always wanted to. I even have a good idea for it now, but we've scattered to the four winds, and the ones left in the area mostly don't talk to each other anymore. Upstate New York's greatest export has always been it's people.

Now, lastly, I have a Dawn Patrol play report that's more than a week over due. We had decided the last time we played that we were sick and tired of random encounters with Fighters versus Two-Seaters and the whole "I fly straight for six squares to complete my mission, now try and shoot me down before I get home" BS. So we just decided on a Fighter engagement, and randomly chose French or British to engage the Germans; then rolled a die to advance the war a number of days. Since I got thee time wrong, and was running late to start with, all of this was taken care of before myself and John even made it to Big Darryl's house.

The date was February 10, 1917. Two Fighter patrols ran into each other deep inside German held territory. My son John and I played the French, we were flying Spad VIIs and the two Darryls were playing the Germans who were both flying Albatross DIIIs. Darryl Jr. was playing his pilot Vizefeldwebel Oskar Schaeffer, who was flying his second mission. Darryl Sr. was playing his pilot Oberleutnant Erich Von Reinstadt, who was flying his 10th mission. John was flying his pilot Lieutenant Guy Bernet and I was flying my pilot, the Serbian volunteer, Lieutenant Vaclev Petrovic; Lieutenant Bernet had two missions and was deemed the flight leader.

Now is the part where I wish I had written this out while it was clearer in my memory, I took a few notes, but I didn't bring the mission logs home with me, maybe I should do that in the future.

The mission started out well enough for us Frenchmen, we were all at high altitude and the Spads outperform the Albatrosses at pretty much every altitude anyway, their only advantage is their dual Spandau guns, which are deadly. We closed to dogfighting range and ended up in a line firing at each other's tails, poor Darryl Jr. in the lead with no target, everyone took a little bit of damage, except me, because I was in the back. It got a little chaotic then, it broke into two dogfights that kept running back into each other, we ban overt table talk during the game, but we can give some pointers about rules and tactics to newer players like John or Dalton (who didn't make this game). Sadly, seven turns into the game Schaeffer scored a critical engine hit on Bernet's plane and it exploded.

Now, completely out of character, it was the luckiest of hits possible, and I felt kind of bad because I shot down John the last time he played (while he was playing MY pilot I might add), so the poor kid has played twice now, and gotten shot down twice. He's a quick learner and he didn't do anything wrong here, except be unlucky; yes, if he stuck around he might have gotten shot down anyway, he was the least experienced player in the game, but I really hope it doesn't sour him on Dawn Patrol.

At that point, outnumbered two to one, you might think I'd just cut and run for my lines, right? Nope. I stuck it out for another ten turns. I'd like to say it was purely for vengeance for my downed comrade, but part of it was also because I was, up until that point, the only one in the group with a legitimate kill scored on another player, so I was trying to shoot Darryl Jr.'s pilot Schaeffer down to keep my record intact. I almost had him a couple of times, I missed at 50' range twice, my guns jammed once, and I had to do all this while evading the other Albatross DIII, not always successfully. Not all the bad luck went in the favor of the Germans, there were a couple of occasions where I almost certainly should have been shot down, both of my wings had sustained a lot of damage and my engine was two hits away from gone, I was just incredibly lucky on critical hit rolls.

In the end, I shot Schaeffer's plane up pretty bad, and Von Reinhardt had some minor damage too, but I was in a position where, if I stuck it out any longer, I was most likely going to give the Hun another aerial victory. I managed to maneuver so that I was pointed towards home and they were either too far behind me or pointed in the wrong direction, and broke for home. My plane had sustained an incredible amount of damage in the fighting, but luckily only one, relatively minor critical hit, to the wing. My Spad was still faster and more maneuverable, so they gave up the chase and the game was over. Lt.Petrovic added a mission to his resume, Vizefeldwebel Schaeffer added both a mission and a kill, and Lt. Von Rienhardt added another mission to his pretty impressive score.

So, if you live in central NY and you have an interest in playing Dawn Patrol, or helping to fix the bugs of 1st edition AD&D's Oriental Adventures through campaign play, or want to play in a B/X Norse campaign, or are interested in alpha-testing a B/X D&D World War II game, or are an old Steppe Warrior from AOL's NWN or one of the other Ordus like Nyrthellan's Woods or The Realm or Everquest or one of the eight million Facebook games we played as a group, or are interested in Star Trek, especially Klingons, but not limited to them, leave me a comment and I'll get back to you.