Blog Shutdown

That's right folks. Obviously, I don't update this blog frequently....if at all....so I've decided to shut it down.

I'll still be blogging about gaming, and many other topics, at my more personal blog:

Baronette Imaginings

Or you can visit my art website, where I'll be talking more about my work and how that all happens:

rachelillustrates.com

(or on DeviantART, if you would like to see even more than what's there).

Thanks to anyone who read this, ever, and I hope you follow the links provided and continue following me!

Brainstorming - Steampunk Gnome Bard/Tinker

Just a short post to jot down some ideas I had for a new character. One of my friends is planning a Steampunk campaign that he wants to run in the Fall, and since he's taking so much time to prepare, he's having us get started a little bit on our characters now. So here's what I have so far, after brainstorming with both him and my llady:

~ Female Gnome bard (dur!)
~ Also a Tinker (using the mini-template from The Qunitessential Gnome by Mongoose)
~ Likely then comes from a family of Tinkers, but decided not to just follow that as a profession and chose a life of Bardic Magic instead, since she showed the propensity for it
~ Sings and plays a Hurdy Gurdy *heart*
~ Hurdy Gurdy will not have a turny knob thing - instead there are buttons she presses to increase the speed of steam pistons or something that serve that purpose, and add a percussion of their own.
~ Has her hair in short dreadlocks, like the girl in my "Llamataur" piece. Decorates it with beads and cogs and things.
~ Plays two different kinds of songs - songs about the techonological changes, to boost her popularity, and songs about traditional fantasy quests and heroes and romance, for her own pleasure. Hopefully as the campaign goes she will merge these two things - creating songs that are about those kinds of adventures and romance, but truly Steampunk too.
~ Likes the fashion and certain cultural changes best out of what's happening, not interested in the technology so much per se - maybe embraces the idea of courtly love too, despite the Gnomish freedom about love, so maybe she worships Sheyanna Flaxenstrand? Ooh, in that case she might be adventuring to find true love for herself. That also might make her seem kind of prudish, since she doesn't sleep around, but she'd be free with herself with someone she loved enough for that.

....Yeah that's pretty much it so far. Will likely edit this, or make a new post, once more of her has developed.

Not a "Real" Gamer

Hi folks. In real life news, I lost my job this week. Ugh. As a result, I'll have lots of time to blog and such, so we'll see how that goes.

In gaming news, something happened last "World of Darkness" session that is STILL bothering me. Its been a week, but it still makes my face go like AARGH!, so I figured I should write about it.

That game is being Storytold by a friend of ours, who became a friend of ours because he's dating another friend of ours who we're very close to (when I say we I mean me and my llady). He is a pretty typical gamer boy with first-person-shooter tendencies (instead of RPG tendencies). That said, the story of his game is still very interesting. The other players are also typical gamer boys - in a very "hit it until it stops moving, what is this 'roleplay' you keep mentioning?" kind of way. So my llady and I, who very much enjoy the roleplay aspects of any game, get kinda frustrated with them sometimes.

Anyway, last session, amongst the ADD, the game "Left 4 Dead 2" came up, since our Storyteller has been obsessed with playing it lately. My llady is very into zombies, but said she wouldn't be interested in playing it. This is because those zombies are not REAL zombies, not according to traditional zombie lore. But our fellow gamers didn't care about that. They assumed that she wouldn't want to play it because of all the gore. This assumption was quickly followed by the words:

"Oh, but that's because you're a gamer GIRL."

......wtf?????

This came out of the mouth of someone who is supposed to be our FRIEND, dripping with condescendingness and belittlement. Seriously. Apparently we're lesser gamers simple because we have VAGINAS. Gasp! How dare we venture into the big boys league by "dabbling" in gaming. Neverfuckingmind the hours I spend playing WoW every week, or the fact that we play WoD with them every week, or the fact that I've been playing DnD since I was in high school, or the fact that my llady has played video games her entire life, or the fact that I ran MY OWN CAMPAIGN for a good long time and plan on picking it up again when I get my life back on track!!!! Nooooooo, because we're girls, we have no frickin place there! We will never ever ever ever EVER be taken seriously about out gaming hobbies. All because we like the story aspects better than just shooting and killing, which MUST be because we have two X chromosomes. Bastards. What about gamer boys who like the story aspects more? Hmmmmm????

In case it wasn't obvious from that last bit, here's how all that makes me feel:



Seriously though, I see this everywhere in gamerdom. When I'm on WoW, since I play female Toons, I get harrassed with "Do you need help?" way more often than I feel a male Toon would. Whenever I walk into a gaming store, the many boys there are shocked and awed to see me, but quickly get over THAT so they can treat me like I'm an IDIOT.

WHY??????

*headesk*

Anyway, to cheer us all up now, here's a link to a blog by Cocoasweety, where she posts the most ADORABLE WoW art I have seen possibly ever:

SO CUTE GO LOOK NOW!!!!!

Off to pretend to be a productive adult now. Thanks for listening!

New name, new header, new start

Hi again everyone! As you see above you, I've a) put up a new header and b) renamed the blog. Since I'm not just talking about D&D anymore, this is now "Badger the Gnome's Gaming Tome." Huzzah for geekdom. Also, to your right, is a new profile image. Its my main WoW character, a Gnome fighter named Knuffig. Since I have to create backstory for ALL my characters, I'm sure you'll hear more about her soon.

That's it for now - the World of Darkness campaign is progressing interestingly, and the D&D campaign in which I play Tanisevania is still going on despite game-breaking decisions. Will write more when I have more to say.

Gaming Explosion, and resulting changes

Hi, anybody reading this! Its been roughly 5,000 years since I posted last, which is because life (gaming and otherwise) has been INSANE. Obviously, I'm going to be going on about the gaming part here.

As for DnD, there are two things going on (or rather, one thing that has been continuing, and one thing that is no longer going on at all):

First off - my campaign is on hiatus. That's the one with Gazit, and Neeta, and several other revolving-door high-turnover type characters. I can't seem to keep players long, can I? Anyway, the reason for this hiatus is that I need to focus on my carreer as an artist - one way or another I will be starting a webcomic soon, and I need to make sure I can commit to that before I can continue running my game. Since the comic (either way) will be fantasy-oriented, I will be posting about it here once it launches. In case anyone cares to go take a look :)

Secondly - my friend Heather's campaign, in which I play Gnome druid Tanisevania, is still going on. However, at the last session, a campaign-breaking decision was made - which I as a player know about but don't know what it was, and as a character have no idea - so I'm sure interesting things are to follow. I'm sure Heather will come up with something very awesome to meet whatever challenge that decision created. It will also probably include towers.

Now, for other gaming news:

World of Darkness - my girlfriend and I recently started playing in a World of Darkness campaign, that incorporates pretty much every campaign-setting WoD covers (Werewolf, Changeling, Mage, etc.). She is playing a Sin Eater, from Geist, and I am playing a Beast Runnerswift Changeling who is much like a deer. Its a totally different system from DnD (obviously) and I'm having fun learning it, so I'm sure I'll be posting more stuff about the game and my character as things progress.

Word of Warcraft - .....Yeah, I know. I have finally caught the WoW bug. There's actually a really odd/funny chain of events that led to it. I had been avoiding playing it on purpose, cause I thought I would like it too much and get sucked in and lose all other aspects of my human life. Anyway, here's what happened:

- Girlfriend and I watch "Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog." Totally adore it.
- Girlfriend and I listen to "Commentary!: The Musical." Felicia Day mentions "The Guild" about 80.000 times.
- I look "The Guild" up. Totally adore it.
- I make Girlfriend watch it. She totally adores it. We rewatch all 3 seasons several times.
- Inspired by "The Guild," Girlfriend downloads the WoW trial. Wants me to play too, so I do it as well.
- We drive to Walmart THAT SAME NIGHT, only a few hours later, to buy the game and subscribe. I consider it part of her birthday present.

That was in November, and we are still playing (only a few nights a week because non-gaming life is crazy too, but still). My main character is a Gnome Warrior, and my two alt characters are a Draenei Shaman and a Gnome Warlock. I also play a Human Mage with a specific party every Monday night. I am definitely having fun with it (and am so open for any WoW commissions, if someone would like one!).

So what does all this mean?

Most importantly, it means that this blog is going to be changing from a specifically DnD blog to a general gaming blog. Sorry DnD-only-folks, it had to happen sometime. Or at least I'd like to think it had to, considering how much fun I'm having. Sometime soon I will be changing the name and the header, though it will still be under Badger the Gnome first and foremost. It also means that I'll be trying to post more often here, as I have more gaming-related things to talk about. I apologize if that doesn't happen as often as you think it should.

So anyway, thanks for reading, and have fun gaming too!

Tanisevania returns!

Much to my surprise, the campaign in which I play Tanisevania is resuming this Saturday *blinkblink* This is totally awesome, mind you, since I do miss playing her (and this time, I’ll get to play her as I intended, without having to worry about a certain individual’s opinion of my roleplaying abilities). I was just under the impression that we weren’t restarting that game until the beginning of October because of schedule conflicts. Luckily, my llovely girlfriend thought we might be starting soon after all, and we were both unsure about it enough that I gave our DM (Heather) a call to check, and ta da!

Anyway, I need to get back into Tanisevania’s mindset quickly. And of course, her mindset is a bit…different than usual because she was still in love with Grim at the point we left off.

This is where I think we left off/what is going on with her:

After leaving Ni-Shan, we stopped back briefly on our home continent, then set out for another one (who’s name escapes me at the moment, and I don’t have my stuff with me, so no checking the map) in order to get Grim and Imari (a badass NPC) to a fighting tournament there. I also believe Grim is supposed to fight in it as a representative of the kingdom we set out from, since he is the King’s Champion. Anyway, after we got there, we agreed to help these two guys – Angelus and Magnus, I think – rescue their sister. In return, they would guide us to the tournament, since none of us have been here before. This is also a desert continent, so she’s been studying the wildlife a bit, having never been to a desert before. However, oweverHoweveshe’s not that happy with it – she misses trees, a LOT. I can’t remember if we’re in the middle of the tower with the sister or not – we probably are, or haven’t even gotten to it yet, considering that I don’t recall checking how hot the sister was (remember, Tanisevania is a big ho). Soooo yeah.

In terms of what happens next, though, Grim is no longer in the picture. He was played by our DM’s husband, who turned into a royal, flaming douchenozzle who runs from all of his responsibilities and everything worthwhile in his life. But that’s another story. I’m expecting our DM to do one of two things – either Grim and Tanisevania had a falling out, and as a result he left the party, or he died accidentally in some horrible painful way. I understand if she goes for the latter option, but I kinda hope she doesn’t, because if Tanisevania and Grim’s relationship is still solid when he dies, she’ll have to mourn him.

So, here’s how she’ll probably end up acting – If she and Grim have a falling out (no matter what happens to him afterward), it will reaffirm her idea that she can’t be in a relationship, and she’ll go back to being fine with being alone and screwing around with whoever she wants to (mind you, she hasn’t been monogamous at all this whole time she was with Grim either). If she needs to vent, she’ll likely vent to Indigo, and if she needs to angst about how love sucks, she’ll likely talk to Imari. If Grim dies before they break up, she will mourn him appropriately, but that in its own way will reaffirm her no-relationships rule – loving someone like that, and losing them, is just too painful, no matter how accepting of death she is. She’ll go through a mourning period, which I’ll need to keep good track of, and return quickly to her usual ways. Afterward, she’ll probably remember him fondly but realize it was for the best. And she’s not going to cast reincarnation on him, because coming back as something other than what he was would not have made him happy.

Damn, with all that in mind, I’m not sure which way I’d prefer our DM to go after all.

But moving on, here’s some things I need to do before Saturday:

~ Go over Tanisevania’s character sheet, backstory, etc.
~ Reread the most recent post about her here, to refresh my memory of the story.
~ Draw her, if I have time (as an artist, that will help me refamiliarize myself with her even more).

All this on top of planning for my own campaign this Sunday, and getting ready to take my trip next week. Busy busy busy. As such, will talk more later.

Session review, 09/06/09

Last night was the first official session of the relaunch of my campaign. Honestly, it didn’t go as badly as I thought it would. I did okay, DMing-wise, and everyone was flexible enough to work with each other despite the fact that two of the members are still total strangers to the rest of the party.

Things I should have covered that I didn’t – I forgot to have one of the players describe his character, and neglected to describe some of the NPCs in as much detail as they should have been described. I will have to correct that next time. Also, the party traveled together without incident for about a month, and I summarized over it. Yes, this helped with gameplay, but I should have had them roll Intelligence checks or something to see what they figured out about each other in that time (everyone seemed to keep to themselves as much as possible even though they were traveling together, so its not like they were sharing sob stories about their character history on their own). Will have to be more mindful of that as they travel together in the future. I also totally forgot to have the new characters roll spot checks for Gazit’s eyes – they are odd, and mark something very important about her past/abilities. I will have to remember to have them do that next time too, in a retcon kind of way.

Things that went well – like I said, everyone was flexible about getting the party together, and even though they knew out-of-character they they were supposed to form a party, they still roleplayed it out very well. Certain things were noticed that implied troublesome things about the new characters, but still they managed to stick together. They didn’t even throw me for any loops this time, and did a great job investigating the plot hook I threw at them. They were actually very creative about that, and managed to talk their way out of a battle, using the skills at their disposal to avoid it instead of randomly slaughtering NPCs. So very good on them, and we stopped right after that, so I hope what’s next will be worth it to them.

Other problems – the only other thing that I need to keep in mind is that one of the new characters, Abaddon (played by Alex) is EXTREMELY overpowered. This is not because of the numbers on his sheet, he just reeeeeeeally knows what he’s doing and how to play his character to the maximum potential. Luckily, the other new character, Galyn, is played by someone (Forrest) that also knows the game, and the rules, really well, so he acts as a great buffer between Alex and the rest of us. Yes, as a DM I should know the rules better, but I don’t, and my focus is really to have fun with this and not worry so much about the technicalities. Anyway, I will need to “beef up” encounters in the future to make them more challenging for Abaddon, and the rest of the party by proxy.

This means that I have a bit more editing to do for next week’s session (though not nearly as much as I had to do for yesterday). They have found potetntial help, but this help is going to test them to prove their loyalty to the good side. This was originally going to be a relatively easy test, and they will still think it’s going to be, but they’ll be misinformed about what they’re facing. Mwahaha. Basically all I have to do is make some of their enemies in this encounter higher level than I planned, and maybe throw a monster in to boot.

So, work for next week – make the upcoming fight more challenging, and adjust treasure accordingly (if its going to be hard, the reward should be worth it). Refamiliarize myself with the bad guys’ classes, too, so I won’t have to turn to the book for information every two seconds. Make sure that Joel describes his character, Dwyr, like he should have last time, and give better descriptions of the NPCs. Have Galyn and Abaddon roll spot checks to notice how weird Gazit’s eyes are.

That’s all for now. If writing things out like this helps me next week, then I’ll probably start writing reviews like this after each session we have. Like always, look for more later.