Navelgazing for fun and profit

I’m taking a page from +Peter V. Dell’Orto‘s book today, and just throwing down some random thoughts.

GURPS Dungeon Fantasy: Jade Regent

As much as I occasionally take gentle shots at the Adventure Path and its theme, I have a fantastic time playing in that game. It gives me my only real outlet for actually experiencing the game for which I write, and +Nathan Joy does a fine job in turning the AP into GURPS.

Two things I do wish were that there was a faster way to play than the chat-based interface we use. It’s just simply slower than the Google Hangouts/Roll20 games I’ve played, in GUMSHOE, Pathfinder, and yes, even in GURPS. While I actually prefer MapTool’s interface thanks to the handy macros largely created, I think, by +Emily Smirle, I cannot deny that +Jeromy French and that group goes through more actual plot motion in two hours than we often do in four.

From a purely gameplay standpoint, Cadmus, my Warrior Saint is fun to play. He’s a decent fighter, occasionally literally pulls off miracles, and is mostly capable of turning nearly any confrontation with undead into a nonissue. Mostly – Nate fixed some of the more egregious problems with his abilities (like Turning Undead) with a few rules mods – a Zone of Pure Evil or something that countered the +10 Cadmus gets to Will for this power. I was totally down with that. He finally got his axe silvered a few sessions ago, fixing a glaring “newbie to DF” oversight that won’t happen again. He desperately needs some appropriately-priced (meaning “can be used with Divine Favor 8”) Learned Prayers for use on diffuse or homogeneous foes, as well as some sort of ranged attack. Either that or a bunch of buff-type powers, because with +Theodore Briggs‘ Knight Thumvar and +Mark Langsdorf‘s Mystic Knight, Cadmus is back on second-ranker duty. His inability to simultaneously use Righteous Fury and any other Holy Power (invoking something else turns off RF) significantly limits his utility. Since RF lasts 3d seconds and is only usable once per day, I’m not sure if it would break anything to allow me to do both. Or maybe I can do both, but it costs me 1 FP per other power instead of for free.

Hmmm . . .

The Queue


I have a spectacular number of projects on my GURPS whiteboard. Something like twelve ideas between e23, Pyramid, and future topics to explore at length for this blog. Work and real life – plus a new-found and long-delayed addition to Angry Birds Star Wars  (curse you, +Rovio ) have conspired to prevent me from sitting down and actually writing.

I really need to grind out my pending article on weapon breakage and edge quality. +Christopher Rice has actually run it through an honest-to-God playtest, and reports that it works very well in play. There are some tweaks that Peter helped me think about that will make that part of it even stronger. I suspect rather strongly that I’m going to wind up taking it apart again – I’d originally written it as one big piece, then split it into three, and now it’s back to One Big Article (only 6,500 words, so not Deadly Spring big). The parts I don’t like are holding up the parts that I do like, though, so it might just be time to do a crap-ectomy and get +Steven Marsh something he can use.

Speaking of Christopher Rice, he and I are eyeballing a few joint projects. One of which would be really, really fun to bring forward again.

Interviews


I had a lot of fun doing that first interview with +Sean Punch and I want to do more, but I need to get cranking on the invite list (know who I want in my mind) and look at some structure and content ideas on how to do it. I got enough practice on that interview that I know how to get ’em done, edited, and transcribed in good order. Might need to contemplate donations though if I start to do a ton of these, just to defer the cost of transcription.

Technical Grappling


Well, it’s out, it’s sold over 200 copies, which is about halfway, honestly, to what I hope it will sell. I think as people use it in play, rather than read-and-theorize, the feedback will come more frequently. I have a few interesting ideas that I’m not sure would be best as a blog entry, a Pyramid article, or even a separate supplement. Probably not a full-on supplement, but a Pyramid article would be fun. I wonder if +Rob Kamm remembers what we discussed many moons ago.