Alignments In All Their Glory

            Greetings!  This week I have bad news and I have good news.  Bad news is that our DM has gone home for the summer and we will not be able to continue with our current campaign until the end of the summer.  The good news though, is that I will be starting a new campaign with some other friends of mine.  This campaign will actually be using the “Oriental Adventure” 3^rd edition book that is basically the Asian culture version of D&D.  This is my first time playing an “Oriental Adventures” campaign so it should be interesting to say the least.  I’ll post updates on the campaign as we progress.

            But for the mean time, let’s talk alignment.  While we have been posting tons of alignment charts, I feel like I should give the criteria that we generally use to determine each character for their alignment.  Granted, not all of these criteria are perfectly met, but the goal is to make it as close as possible.  Also, for some alignments there are multiple interpretations so we take that into account as well.  So without further ado, here they are:

Lawful Good:  One interpretation of this is a character that will do the right thing simply because it’s the right thing to do even if there is no benefit whatsoever to the character.  Another, darker, interpretation is a character that will slay all evil in the world and is for absolute justice.  If a person steps out of line, the Lawful Good character will be the first to throw them in jail or kill them.

Neutral Good: This is the overall good guy.  Sure, he’ll help you move your furniture, and then afterward will go have a few beers with ya.  He’s not going to out of his way to uphold the law but he’ll definitely follow it to the best of his ability.

Chaotic Good: Basically Robin Hood; a character that does what he feels is right, without regard to whether the action is legal. A Chaotic Good character follows their own conscience and tries to uphold the ideals of justice, even if they feel the law gets in the way of it.

Lawful Neutral:  A character that is devoted to the law to the extent that the morality of an issue is not even considered.  Typically, a Lawful Neutral character will not make judgements on matters of right or wrong, but simply whether it is against the law or not.  This is a more "diplomatic" and slightly passive alignment.

True Neutral: There are quite a few interpretations to True Neutral, but the most basic one is apathy for almost everything.  A second interpretation is one of a person that is motivated by nothing but what immediately benefit him/herself; frequently a backstabber where the character is the first to switch sides. Another is the single goal-driven character, pursuing his aspiration above all else, no matter what it takes. There are a few other interpretations out there, but these are the main ones.

Chaotic Neutral:  Generally a wild card, a Chaotic Neutral character can both be willing to help others or hurt them all in the same day.  A character of this nature is hard to read, but easy to play.  They value personal freedom above all else, and hate the restrictions of rules or even morality. Basically, they do what they want because they can.

Lawful Evil:  This is the corrupt politician, the crooked lawyer, the mafia boss, or a general bad guy that has some sort of personal code of conduct.  Lawful evil is more difficult than other evil because it has a standard to uphold, while doing evil things.  Basically, think evil with a structure.

Neutral Evil:  This is the calm, collected, stealthy, and merciless evil that is characteristic of a person that does evil for personal benefit.  They may be willing to work with others, but the goals are mostly self-centered. They murder when convenient, and cannot be trusted to keep their word.

Chaotic Evil:  Basically a character that does evil for evil’s sake.  This character acts almost completely randomly and likes to just destroy things.  A Chaotic Evil Character would push over barrels just for being there, kill someone because they looked at him wrong, or burn down a town because he could.

For an ample amount of examples of these characteristics, just look at the Alignment Charts section of the site and see for yourself.

Until next week!

Raz

           

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Quote of the Week

Raz: Something’s not right here…

Alexander: I don’t care.

Player Tip of the Week

Don’t fight your own party members unless it’s by DM request.  While this doesn’t usually happen, if you have characters of vastly different alignment sometimes fights can break out between players in game.   This can have potentially disastrous effects on party synergy and can even affect how the players treat each other in real life.

For instance, in one of the campaigns that I was DMing, we had a Lawful Good Paladin and a Neutral Evil Rogue in the same party.  After rescuing a poor village from a curse that had befallen it, the Rogue demanded payment of some sort while the Paladin didn’t want anything.  Well, one thing led to another and the Rogue ended up threatening the townsfolk with his sword, but the Paladin wouldn’t allow it.  So they fought, the Paladin killed the Rogue, and I had to hit the rewind button on the scenario and just tell them what happened so that they wouldn’t attack each other again.

Long story short, don’t attack your party members.  If you are evil, avoid doing evil in front of your good friend and if you are good let some of the smaller stuff slide with your evil ally.  In the long run this will save the party much grief and all will be peaceful.

Courtesy of Colin-Ashcroft

DM Tip of the Week

Be careful when incorporating dragons.  While I suppose it is understood that Dragons are a big part of D&D, often times it is not fully understood, especially by new DMs, just how powerful they really are.  Dragons, unless dumbed down considerably, can be a huge challenge for characters that are level 10 or less.  Even some of the younger dragons can be a big challenge if not executed in just the right fashion.

For instance, just recently in our current campaign (the one with Zedd), we had an encounter that involved us fighting a Green Dragon that we had just tried to warn of Darken Rahl’s plan to drain the life force of dragons.  We were roughly level 7 or 8 at this point and this Green Dragon kicked the crap out of us and we only just barely beat it.  Luckily for us, our DM had made severe adjustments to its abilities and stats so that it couldn’t one hit KO us.

Zedd did a good job, and has continued to do a good job, at making dragons beatable for us, but even at level 10 (where we are now) we still probably could not beat a full fledged adult dragon with no changes to its stats or abilities.  Point is, if you are going to incorporate dragons, do it very carefully.

Roll A d6

Greetings!  This week is a rather busy one for me due to final exams so I will not have a full post this week.  Thus, I will leave you with a very clever piece of media that I have discovered just a few days ago.  This song is called "Roll a d6", which, as you can imagine, is a D&D spoof of the song "Like a g6" by Far East Movement.  Garnering almost 300,000 views in four days, this is truly a noteworthy video.  Enjoy!


Raz

Holidays Come With Interesting Surprises

            Greetings!  Hope everyone had a pleasant Easter.  My apologies for the lack of posting last weekend.  However, this weekend proved to be an excellent source of inspiration.  Endos and I cranked out a ton of alignment charts that I think you should enjoy in coming weeks.

For this week though, I would like to pay tribute to our current DM Zedd for coming up with a simple, but ingenious idea that could be applied in almost any D&D campaign.  Holiday Specials!  Basically, what we did was had a holiday themed side quest(s) where we got to find Easter eggs that when broken had a magic item inside.  Also, we had an Easter Rabbit themed dungeon that we traversed where we found a golden egg at the end (that we don’t know the significance of yet) and got to fight two Chimeras that had Rabbit heads instead of normal ones. 

However, the “holiday drops” don’t end here.  Once we obliterated the Chimeras, we were all splattered in their blood, which caused most of us to gain a new mutation.  Now, I don’t believe I’ve mentioned how all our characters seem obsessed about mutations, but with all of our current mutations we could all easily pass as extra-planar beings.  Here’s what we all have thus far:

Endos: Fangs, red eyes, a snake’s tongue, lightning tattoos all over his head, and now he has TWO heads with one head having rabbit teeth instead of fangs.

Raz: Rat tail was replaced with a blue dragon tail and spines, a holy symbol on my forehead, and now a bunny poof at the end of my dragon tail that allows me to shoot lightning from it.

Alexander: Glowing green eyes and now every time he eats a carrot he regains half his health.

Aurora: Blue dragon wings and now bunny paws and bunny ears.

As you can see, we’ve gotten quite out of control.

Until Next Week!

Raz

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Player Tip of the Week

Know who you can and can’t stand to play with. While this may be a bit obvious, you want to play with people that you know will work well together both in and out of game.   The thing is, if you only just tolerate a person in real life, even if they want to play with you, it is usually best to avoid it.  I don’t say this to be mean or cold hearted, but for a campaign to go smoothly you have to like who you play with.

I would give a “For instance” for this one, but you know what I mean…

An awesome D&D background courtesy of Snoo-Snoo

DM Tip of the Week

Try to limit the amount of BS.  What I mean by this is try to limit how many thing that happen in the campaign that  a) limit what characters can do, b) makes no sense in the slightest, and c) are almost completely random.  There are probably more factors that go along with this, but my point is limit how often one particular character has a convenient stomach flu to prevent him from participating in an activity that others in your party are doing.  Being struck by lightning on a sunny day would be another example. 

However, the best example I have ever head was not in one of my campaigns but in someone else’s that I found online.  Basically the player and his party had built more or less a horse drawn tank using a cart, shields, and other items.  Great idea, right?  Well the DM didn’t like this tank so he made bandits attack them for the tank. The party killed the bandits.  More bandits arrived, so the party killed them too. Then even more bandits showed up and made off with the tank. Naturally they followed the bandits, and after a day or so they found the horses dead on the road leading into a desert, with not a single footprint in sight.  So basically, an infinite number of bandits carrying a tank on their backs, through a desert, without leaving any footprints.  This, my friends, is BS.

Not a Post

Due to the Easter Holiday I was unable to post this weekend.  Regular posting should resume this coming week.  My sincerest apologies.


Raz

D&D: Not Just a Table Top Game

Courtesy of Darknight0x0

            Greetings!  Good news! My character no longer has cancer!  Woot! It only took three cards from the Deck of Many Things, which gave me a wish spell that I used to eliminate the magical cancer.  Then on the next card it forced Endos to betray me (a.k.a. almost kill me)… at least the cancer is gone.

            Anyways, this week I thought would be a good one to give a review on the game Neverwinter Nights 2, a PC game that is basically a D&D campaign on a computer screen.  The game begins with you, as a relatively normal person living in a small village, participating in some local competitions and festivals and such when all of a sudden the village is attacked by an army of goblin-like creatures looking for a magical shard that, unknown by the villagers, is in their area. That’s the start of the game, now here’s the review:

In the realm of games that relate to D&D, Neverwinter Nights 2 (NWN2) is definitely one worth playing for any D&D enthusiast.  The key factor that stands out about NWN2 is that the game takes actual material from D&D books and pastes it right into the game text.  Special abilities, weapons, spells, and equipment are almost entirely from one version or another of D&D.  One would think that this would lead to a repetitive gaming experience, but with the minor changes in the rules and the addition of several “new” classes the game remains relatively fresh. 

With this said though, the story of NWN2 is quite basic as far as role playing-fantasy games are concerned and on top of this it is a rather long game (30 to 50 hours depending on if you know what you are doing).  Because it is so long and the story so generic, the game may become dull after awhile unless you are good at finishing long games.  If it is any consolation, later chapters are far more interesting than early ones, which are primarily concerned with your character trying to figure out what the heck is going on. These issues are easy to overlook though due to the general enjoyment you will experience from developing your character into his/her most powerful state.

 However, there are three major issues in NWN2 that hold it back from being a truly great game.  The first of these is that the camera is often frustrating and unable to show corners adequately.  The second issue is that there are a few bugs and glitches in the game that, while not crippling, are a nuisance and can be challenging to work around.  The third, and worst, of these though is a mediocre AI system.  AIs will walk right through traps that are plainly visible, ranged characters will charge right into battle, spell casters won’t cast spells, and everyone will guzzle potions like they were water.  Now you can work around this by micromanaging your party, but this becomes increasingly demanding as your abilities mature.

Overall, despite a few lack lust technical issues, the game is worth playing even if it’s just for the sake of saying you did.   Whether you finish it though is up to you…

Until next time.

Raz

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Player Tip of the Week

Don’t take what happens in game personally outside of the game.  Sometimes it is easy to get engrossed in your character or party dynamics when playing through a campaign, which can lead to issues outside of the game in real life.  Just because your party’s Chaotic Neutral Sorcerer casted Flare in your character’s face or made fun of your character in game, does not mean that they are insulting you in real life. 

For instance, when Endos in game makes fun of me having a rat tail, or when his Imp Familiar tricked me into making a deal with a demon to remove the rat tail (he gave me cancer instead) my character was certainly angry with them, but once we were back to reality there are no hard feelings.  In some circumstances, the opposite can happen and arguments may ensue.

Point is, don’t take what happens in game personally.  Most of the time it’s just a joke; so be sure to take it like one.

A Ranger Courtesy of Grandanvil

DM Tip of the Week

            Try to balance the number of enemies per encounter with your party’s strength.  Sometimes it can be rather difficult to determine what the optimal number of enemies per encounter is because every party is different.  For some parties a swarm mentality (many weaker enemies) is the best where as for others a boss mentality (one very powerful enemy) is best.  The problem with a swarm is that enemies might be too weak, making the encounter simple and boring, while the problem with a boss is that against a party of at least 3 players, one enemy can be outmatched by simple virtue of having only 1 action each turn, vs the 3 actions the party has.

            For instance, in my last campaign I took liberties from Lovercraft and made Cthulhu the final boss of my campaign.  However, everyone in our party was about level 10 so I had to Nerf Cthulhu’s attacks to make it a more fair fight; giving him a base attack that did 4d6 and a secondary attack that did -2 damage to Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, and Cha.  I figured I’d just give him more health and it should even out.  I was wrong (initially I thought around 200 health would suffice, but it ended up being around 500).  Perhaps it was because the party was a bit overpowered, or maybe just lucky, but they killed Cthulhu in five or six rounds. 

            Long story short, no amount of health can compensate for having an unbalanced fight.

Interview With D&D Artist Felipe Gaona

Greetings!  D&D, as I have said before, pulls heavily from the art that surrounds it.  So I thought that nothing would be more appropriate than to interview an aspiring D&D artist, Felipe Gaona.  He is a self taught, self motivated, painter from Chile whose art is characterized by vivid coloration and definition.  Fortunately, I had the opportunity to interview this fantastic artist on D&D and his artwork.  To see his works visit his website here or his Deviantart page here. 

[this post is property of Do A Spot Check]

What experience do you have with D&D and how long have you been playing?

I've been playing D&D for a long time now, probably since I was 12 years or so, but I wasn’t introduced to RPGs until College.

My first DM was very bad, but the second one was great! I got to play a second edition Halfling Rogue for the adventure, which ran for a few years, until everyone started to get busier; eventually the campaign was just dropped. Since I didn't get to play my character all the way to the end, I do tend to introduce some random Halfling Rogues here and there in my campaigns as a DM, they're so much fun.

As a DM, I started with a Legend of the Five Rings campaign, but I really didn't like the system.   However, because I'm a big fan of Japanese Culture, I moved to 3rd Edition Oriental Adventures and created my own world.  That campaign was very long and the players actually finished it.  That was a great experience especially because I think a lot of campaigns are just abandoned. [this post is property of Do A Spot Check]

I've been playing a lot of games since then.  Nothing too long, but about a year ago I started a 4th Edition campaign that's still running.


What was your most prevalent memory of D&D?

In the campaign with my Halfling Rogue, at one point the party had to face a lich to cross a gate.  Unfortunately, he would have kicked our collective asses and of course my character wasn't good at fighting.  However, the lich was willing to let us go through the gate if a character sacrificed his life.  The only one to step in was Rufus’ (my character's name) friend "Karlak”, a Half Orc.  He sacrificed his life so that everyone could live.  It was kind of sad (kind of, since it's a RPG) because Karlak was my character's only real friend. [this post is property of Do A Spot Check]

What made you want to become an artist for Wizards of the Coast/D&D?

I've always been drawing and painting my characters and everyone else's.  I think before that I usually drew things out of videogames and anime, but I really liked making the characters that I’d been playing with in D&D come to life.  I had a great time doing it and I think it's an amazing career.

As for WotC itself, I came across Art Order a community run but Jon Schindehette, senior Art Director of WotC, he has a lot of wisdom to share and I think he's one of the best ADs I've "met" (well, internet meeting that is).

What is the inspiration behind your D&D related artwork?

This is a hard question.  I really get inspiration from all kind of sources.  I think the biggest would be European myths and culture, you know, vikings celts, armors, etc. I draw a lot of inspiration from nature as well.  Movies and animation are also big sources of inspiration also. [this post is property of Do A Spot Check]

As for artistic inspiration, some contemporary illustrators such as Jesper Ejsing and Tyler Jacobson, and older ones like N.C. Wyeth and Adolphe Bouguereau.  My paintings look nothing like theirs though!


How would you say D&D has positively affected you/your life?

I've met a lot of people and made good friends through the game.  I also have an excuse to get together with friends and hang out while having a good time. I think that's one of the greatest things about a game like D&D.

I've also learned a lot from the artists that work for D&D.  There's some amazing talent between those pages. [this post is property of Do A Spot Check]

Are there any closing comments you would like to make?

I really liked answering these questions; thinking about the answers gave me some insight about myself and where to go next.  It was also fun remembering some good times with the game, thanks a lot!

And there you have it!  Thank you Felipe for your time, energy, and of course your art!  Keep up the excellent work!

Until next time.

Raz

The Bag That Can Hold (Almost) Everything

            Greetings!  This week I can officially say that the gods of percentage dice are not in my favor.   For the past few sessions every roll of the percentage dice has yielded unsuccessful results.   From trying for 12 hours to commune with the Sword of Truth, to practicing with my rat tail, to rolling around in Green Dragon blood in an attempt to spark a mutation (everyone got a cool mutation except me) I have utterly failed every roll.  I was terribly upset about this, especially when for 7 rolls in a row I could not break a 5…  [this post is property of Do A Spot Check]

            Annnnyway, this week I have a nice piece of D&D paraphernalia for your consideration, the Think Geek Bag of Holding.

                                Ever experience the excruciating pain of not being able to fit all your stuff into one convenient bag?  Well fear not because the Think Geek Bag of Holding is the satchel for you!  The Bag of Holding offers you the convenience of being able to hold such bulky items as a laptop, a PS3 with accessories, textbooks, and an assortment of all your smaller devices like ipods, phones, cameras, and snacks. [this post is property of Do A Spot Check] 

Its revolutionary design is such that while on the outside it may not look like much, on the inside it has enough space to fit more or less anything you could possibly need on a day to day basis.  It's a perfect book bag for college, gamer bag for your gaming devices, or business bag for all your important documents and folders.  And better yet, the Think Geek Bag of Holding is priced at about the same as a normal backpack so you won't have to pay extra for its awesome holding prowess. If you want a bag that can fit it all, the Think Geek Bag of Holding is the one for you! [Pocket dimension not included.]

Until next time.

Raz

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Player Tip of the Week

Think in terms of your party, not yourself.  When you are trying to solve a puzzle or get through a situation, it is easy to get wrapped up in a “What can my character do?” rather than “What can my party do?” mentality.  While it is not your job to know how your party members’ characters work, you still need to be familiar enough with them so that you can construct a solution that incorporates others and not just yourself. [this post is property of Do A Spot Check]

For instance, one day in our current campaign we were going through a dungeon and found a magic wall that when Aurora or myself touched it, we were unable to pass through, but when Endos and Alexander touched it they slipped right through to the other side.  Seeing as there was still a good bit of dungeon left, I was sure there was a way for me to pass through so I tried everything humanly possible to pass.  I tried hitting it with my sword, I tried walking through it with my sword leading the way, I tried tumbling through it, and none of it did anything.  At this point Endos and Alexander had decided that they would just go ahead without me. 

Now I was desperate.  I knew that if only I could see through the wall then I would be able to teleport through it so I put on my magic mask and very slowly put my face to the wall in an attempt to see through.  Unfortunately, the wall was too thick to see through and I ended up with magical third degree burns on my face.

Turns out, the solution was simply for a magic user to hold my hand and lead me through and I would have been spared from cooking my face.

White Dove Courtesy of Nuriko-Kun

DM Tip of the Week

Incorporate moral decisions that significantly impact the outcome of the campaign.  One key element to most any game is immersion into the characters or story and there is no better way to do this than to incorporate moral decisions.  Now when I say “moral decision” I don’t mean “kill the helpless beggar or don’t.” I mean gut wrenching decisions that directly affect your characters. [this post is property of Do A Spot Check]

For instance, in our current campaign we went on a quest to save the dragon king who had a Dagger of Assimilation stuck in his chest on our watch.  So we slayed the assassin and upon our return to the king found that the dagger’s magic was still affecting him and we could not remove it.  Zed then said that he could overload and destroy the dagger with his own life force, but at the cost of his immortality. 

This was a terribly difficult decision because on the one hand, if we didn’t save the king then we would be seen as assassins across the land and hunted like fugitives.  But on the other hand, if Zed gave up his immortality we would lose not just a powerful party member, but also a teacher and friend.  This was extremely difficult to decide, considering both characters were benevolent and beneficial towards us and there was a no other way to remove the dagger. [this post is property of Do A Spot Check]

In the end, we decided to save the king in exchange for Zed’s immortality.  Unfortunately, as we would find out soon after, Zed’s life force had gone straight to Darken Rahl making him more powerful than he would have been if he had just absorbed the dragon king. 

How this will affect the final boss battle is yet to be seen, but it should be challenging if nothing else.