Friday, April 26, 2013

Random Thoughts IX

Just a few stray thoughts and links - not much time to write right now.

- Delta's D&D Hotspot took a look at the drow and his experience running D1 Descent Into the Depths of the Earth at a con. This is one of the modules that I keep looking back on, and thinking I'd like to take them for a spin. I don't recall that much of it from my grade school days, although I do remember running it, at least partly, and remember Q1 distinctly. They'd be very different in GURPS, but there is a pull to them nonetheless. And that's despite my dislike of drow thanks to what I feel is their heavily-overplayed and over-wrought novelization versions that have emerged over the years. I'm glad to hear that a group got to try this one out.

- I've got a new gamer who is supposed to join us on Sunday. He's not new to gaming but new to GURPS. We'll toss him in the deep end, but I'm assigning him a rules buddy who's got the same kind of skill set on his PC to help him. That way he has only one person to ask questions of, and one person to listen to. Hopefully that will mean he isn't overwhelmed by advice coming from many people at once. He's played before with D&D (3.5 I think) so the real issue will be teaching him what dice to roll.

- Confused by cone attacks in GURPS? Want to attack the darkness and actually hit stuff in it? Cones are a good way to do it. Sean "Doctor Kromm" Punch explains the rules-as-written here and some details here. The thread itself is full of lots of, uhm, less than helpful discussion (aka, arguing on the internet). But those two posts hit the main point, which is how to decide on a target hex and deal with scatter.

- John Kovalic is doing a really amusing series of comics on "an intro the roleplaying." Here is the first (very accurate) and second (this would make for quicker play). More follow, and it's always worth reading Dork Tower. Which reminds me, at some point I have to explain my Tolkein Dork Tower claim to fame. Not today, though.

- I really like this, and I'd like to try it - knowledge skills and research. It's a good guideline for "what do I roll against and what does it get me?"

- I've had to pull my dice bag out of my backpack twice this week during tutoring to explain vertices, faces, and edges. Handy when you've got all sorts of dice - I keep one each at least of all of my odd sizes.

That's all for now.

3 comments:

  1. The drow were really cool to me but it is true they are very weak compared to the giants in the previous modules. The temples where the drow were worshipping the Elder Eye were my absolute favorite stuff in AD&D. The Queen of the Demonweb Pits was disappointing to say the least.

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    1. I wonder if they wasn't some trick to running the drow that Gary Gygax was expecting people would intuit, to make them together. Otherwise they are very frail after you've just bashed through waves of giants, trolls, a dragon or two, etc. on your way to the Underdark.

      We disagree on Q1, though. That was ten kinds of awesome to run back in the day, and we spent a lot of time exploring all of the various worlds you can get to. I gather it wasn't what Gary Gygax wanted it to be, but I loved what it was all the same.

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    2. I want to say that I do not think that Q1 was bad in and of itself but it did not fit well at the end of the Giant and Drow series. The Giant and Drow series had a an almost Lovecraftian feel while Q1 was a funhouse type adventure. I truly would have love to have had Q1 written by Gygax because it would have tied in all of the loose ends.

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