“No, Wait…”
Order of the Stick #1, by Rich Burlew. Upgraded to 3.5e!
There’s an interesting thread at the Giant in the Playground forums that deals, in part, with retracting an in-character action. (As a side note, if you’re not reading the Order of the Stick comic at GitP, you really should. There’s a lot of terrific gaming humor there.)
Among the questions the original post poses is the following:
- Do you allow your players to revise an action, if, a second or so later, they remember themselves why they shouldn’t do that?
There is, naturally, quite an array of views on the matter. Some espouse the “you said it, it’s done” school of thought. Others allow retractions with few restrictions. There’s a lot of ground in between. General opinion seems to fall toward “it depends,” which I realize isn’t terribly dramatic. But the question of what, exactly, it depends on remains intriguing.
Categories: Comics, Manga, and Anime, Philosophy and Rants, Websites | Comments (2)
Mythic Japan: the Tengu
A tengu and a Buddhist monk. Print by Kyosai.
The tengu of Japanese legend is an odd creature. It seems to have started out as a type of evil spirit, specifically one opposed to Buddhism. Over the years, the priest-abducting, temple-burning bird-monster became both more humanlike and more benevolent. Tengu became mischievous, powerful creatures not unlike kitsune fox-spirits, and eventually became protectors of Buddhism, seekers of wisdom, and master swordsmen — though they retained their weakness of pride. It became common to ascribe to great swordsmen, such as Minamoto no Yoshitsune, tengu training.
Obviously they make a great addition to a game that features mythic Japanese elements.
The Kenku of D&D, which was introduced to fourth edition in the Monster Manual 2, is clearly based on the tengu, but its attributes have changed to reflect its place in D&D lore. The kenku could be used to reflect the mischievous version of the tengu, but it’s a poor match for the demons, and even for the wise blademasters.
So I used stats of my own. In 4e, they look like this:
Categories: Mythic Japan, Original Game Content | Comments (0)
Character Development: Quick and Dirty Backgrounds
Ever needed to sketch out a replacement player character or a major NPC when time is short? Want to add a little depth to that cult leader or the deputy mayor? Sometimes you just don’t have the time to dedicate to preparing a full, in-depth background — or you want to leave some room for a character’s background to grow and change as the game requires. Maybe you’re starting a new campaign, and you want something that will break the ice without tying the characters down with too many specifics before they all know each other.
By asking a handful of questions, you can generate a usable character, with a skeletal background, within 15 minutes.
Categories: Advice, Player Advice | Comments (3)
Ritual of Rejuvenation
This is mostly a plot-device ritual, but I wrote it up since it came to feature pretty prominently in my game. Its purpose is to extend the life of its caster… perhaps by sinister means. This is the ritual used by evil magicians to bargain with the Raven Queen, trading others’ lives for their own — but it can also be used by a good magician, albeit less effectively.
Categories: Original Game Content | Comments (2)
Musical Inspiration
I’ve written a little about my brainstorming methods before, but lately I’ve been using another method I hadn’t touched on there: plucking phrases out of existing works and building something around them. A good phrase can be inspiration for an NPC, an object, a location, or an adventure. They can come from novels, poetry, movies, television.
And song lyrics.
A couple of ideas generated by my playlist recently:
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Categories: Advice | Comments (3)
