Environmentally Humorous

With Dante out of town this week, it was my job to pick up the slack, and I actually fell asleep on the job this week! But I've been percolating this idea for awhile. So here's my random thought for Friday!

There's been a lot of press lately about use non-plastic alternatives for shopping bags. You can buy cloth bags from just about every store now (at least in our area). My mother-in-law has several of them in her car so they are handy for shopping purposes. I was looking at them the other day and noticed all the corporate logos and whatnot all over them.

And I got to thinking, how much cooler those bags would be if they had roleplaying-related slogans on them. So I've come up with the following:

1. My other bag is full of dice
2. I rolled a 20 on my Knowledge (Nature) roll
3. A dragon ate my refridgerator, so I have to buy more food
4. The DM said to bring snacks or else
5. This is my Bag of Holding
6. If you don't save (plastic), you take full damage

Abstract Thoughts

The recent trend on our site for the less than serious content will continue yet again. As we're between campaigns right now, none of us are particularly inspired to post game-related content. So, here's my contribution to the frivolity.

It's that time of year when Gen Con seems so close and yet still so far away! I'm very excited this year to meet our friends from the blog-o-sphere. It'll be an entertaining year, I'm sure.

Just a reminder, pre-registration ends this weekend!

I've been bitten lately by more than just mosquitoes... the writing bug has been after me lately too. Unfortunately, I haven't quite managed to get the inspiration and motivation coordinated, but I'm sure I'll get there. Until then, I have been enjoying Capturing Fantasy.

In other abstract thoughts, I've taken a break from Oz books and starting reading the Chronicles of Narnia. It's all good times.

That's about all for me right now. Stay tuned for more insanity!

If Andrew Lloyd Webber Was a DM

Over the weekend, to assuage my need for a movie late at night, I popped in the Phantom of the Opera DVD. As has happened in the past, I began to identify the story elements as roleplaying elements. And I realized that Phantom of the Opera movie is obviously a 3.5 D&D campaign with Andrew Lloyd Webber as DM.

Here's the Story, D&D Style

The Phantom is a bard. He uses some mad Disguise skills to hide his horrible scars, and he obviously took the Skill Focus: Cape Flourish feat. He uses his Bardic Music to Fascinate and Suggest to Christine, that he is a angel and she should love him. She fails her Will Save and totally believes him.

Then, Raoul comes along. He's a rival bard, who uses his Bardic Music to Fascinate and Suggest to Christine that the "angel" is not to be trusted and she should love him instead. She fails her Will Save and totally believes him instead.

There's some crazy "who's better than whom" battling, with music and rapiers and such. After leveling up, the Phantom rolls very, very well on his Craft: Opera roll, and Christine is cast as the lead. On opening night, the Phantom pulls out his Disguise Kit and joins her on stage after he kills the other guy, then kidnaps her via the conveniently placed trap door and whisks her away to his lair. Raoul tries to follow, but he fails his Reflex save when he triggers a trap door. He falls into a pit of water, but he makes his Swim check and manages to escape. He eventually finds the Phantom's lair.

There's more singing, and each of the bards tries to cancel out the other's Bardic Music. Christine finally makes a few Will Saves and realizes that the Phantom really isn't the catch he wanted her to believe he was. Raoul and Christine escape to live happily ever after, while the Phantom disappears into oblivion.

Then, Andrew Lloyd Webber takes down his DM screen and says, "Well, that's that. Good job, everyone! Next time, we're playing 4E, which means you can't be bards, so email me your new character concepts."

2d6 Damage

Dante's recent post on the appropriate amount of damage a thrown mug could inflict reminded me of a time back in our college days of gaming.

During a break one night, some of the guys were flinging dice around the room out of some golf locks they had found at Walmart. Surprising to us all, the walls of the room were not immune to thrown weapons, and a diamond shape was imprinted on the wall from the corner of a d6, and a second d6 had left a small mark.

We all appreciate how much damage we can do in-game by rolling our dice, we should also raise awareness of how much damage dice can do to us. We've all all seen the warning-d4-can-damage-your-foot shirts. We need to take it a step further. Maybe we should consider a warning-thrown-d6-can-scar-your-drywall cross-stitch sampler. Or a warning-multitude-of-d20's-on-the-floor-can-be-as-slippery-as-marbles poster.

If we don't tell the world how much damage our polyhedrals can do, who will?

Some Things are Inevitable

With my crazy work schedule right now, the creativity has been sucked out of my brain. So, I've been going back through my archives to find stuff that I intended to post and never finished.

Sometime last year, Yax posted a list of things which are inevitable. Here's my list of additional laws:

1. The DM will unveil a significant plot hook at the end of the night when everyone has had too much sugar/caffeine to have sufficient attention span to retain said important plot elements.
2. The DM will roll dice for no reason.
3. The wizard will either die early in the epic battle, or he will outlive everyone else and take down the Big Bad with a 1st Level spell.
4. When characters have money to spend, they won't be in a town with a sufficient marketplace to find what they want to buy. When they are in a town with a good market, they won't have money to spend.
5. When you really need to roll well, your dice will betray you.
6. When players choose to cooperate with the DM and follow what they assume is the expected path, it will never be the path the DM wanted them to take.
7. The one time the party doesn't have a rogue is the one time they need one.
8. Ditto for a cleric.
9. When you finally find some awesome treasure, it will either be: a) useless to everyone in the party, like a cloak only usable by an outsider, or b) cursed, but no one in the party has a Remove Curse spell.
10. You will stumble across undead when no one has any undead-appropriate spells memorized. (This may be related to #8).
11. After you have finished equipping the party with mounts, you will suddenly be required to travel by sea on a boat that cannot accommodate your horses.
12. The one time it would be useful to have a bird scout ahead, the ranger will forget s/he has an owl for an animal companion.
    

In Honor of Dragon Appreciation

In R.A. Salvatore's Streams of Silver, Drizzt shares his hope that the world never runs out of dragons. Dragons represent the ultimate challenge, and without a challenge, life becomes meaningless. Before you go running out to defeat your dragons, you should consider the many kinds of dragons.

The Terrorizing-the-Villagers Dragon

Characterized by the terror he provokes, this dragon enjoys the chaos he can spread among the villagers who unfortunately live in the village at the bottom of the mountain in which he resides. In his defence, however, this dragon just can't get enough of those villagers! They make such wonderful snacks, though all the running around in terror does tend to make them a little more lean than he'd prefer.

Eventually, the villagers will get tired of the constant dragon scares and will hire a Knight-in-Shining-Armor to brave the dragon in his lair and rescue them from his reign of terror. If said Knight manages to kill the dragon, he reaps the benefit of the dragon's hoard; if not... well, all his shiny equipment will be added to the pile.

The Secret-Lair-of-Tremendous-Wealth Dragon

In a very remote, nearly unreachable, mostly uninhabitable area, the lair of this dragon is very difficult to find because he doesn't want to be disturbed while he enjoys the hoard he's accumulated over the years. Like a miser enjoying even the smallest coin, this dragon enjoys every little piece of treasure, knows everything down to that last magic ring, and is trying desperately to ensure that no pesky thieves come to steal any of it.

Because of the reclusive nature of this dragon, it takes a very crafty, very sneaky kind of person to find the location of the hidden lair and determine how best to get in, get stuff and get out. Otherwise, this dragon will enjoy a very tasty snack.

The Protector-of-the-Path Dragon

Instead of being a lazy, lay-around-and-count-his-gold dragon, this one went out and got himself a job. He guards something, or someone. He might be pulling the security job because a) he was coerced by someone, b) he decided to do it out of the goodness of his heart, or c) he had nothing better to do and wanted th meet/eat adventurers.

Whatever this dragon guards, it's always important. And he may or may not let others near whatever it is he guards. Only the very courageous, very smart may either fight their way through or convince the dragon to let them pass.

Final Thoughts on Dragons

As we wrap up our celebration of dragons, keep in mind these final thoughts. Not all dragons are evil. Some dragons aren't even real; they may be imaginary, created from the challenges we face in our everyday lives. And some dragons are merely stepping-stones, obstacles which we must overcome in order to enjoy our own happily ever after.

SR's Laws of D&D

Sorry for the absence friends... there are just some times - and the holidays is one of them - when my brain shuts down. But I'm back, and ready to entertain you into the new year!

Yax recently posted a list of those things which are inevitable. They are so true. And here's my list of additional laws:

1. The DM will unveil a significant plot hook at the end of the night when everyone has had too much sugar to have sufficient attention span to retain said important plot elements.
2. The DM will roll dice for no reason.
3. The wizard will either die early in the epic battle, or he will outlive everyone else and take down the Big Bad with a 1st Level spell.
4. When characters have money to spend, they won't be in a town with a sufficient marketplace to find what they want to buy. When they are in a town with a good marketplace, they won't have money to spend.
5. When you really need to roll well, your dice will betray you.
6. When players choose to cooperate with the DM, players will follow what they assume is the expected path; it will never be the path the DM wanted them to take.
7. The one time the party doesn't have a rogue is the one time they need one.

Random Thinkingness

As with everything during the holidays, time for blogging has been in short supply. So I'm sure it comes as no surprise that I don't have a brilliant thought to share with you today. Instead, I'm going to share a little bit of randomness with you.

Hey, I Know That Place!

We tend to be a Forgotten Realms setting group. Since I've been reading R.A. Salvatore's Drizzt novels, I've found that besides being able to enjoy the story (which is awesome), I love reading about Drizzt's adventures, especially when they occur in the same general places where my characters have adventured. There's something exciting about my characters sharing a geographic connection with the well-known Drow Ranger.

Here, Take My Ring of Invisibility

Dante found the Intimagik booth at Gencon this past year, and he purchased a DM/GM ring. Every once in awhile, I think I should have gotten my own ring because they are pretty neat. Of course, I have to wonder which ring I would get (a dilemma that plagued me at Gencon and lead to me not buying any of then). And this leads me to wonder how cool it would be if we could actually have Rings of Intelligence +4 or Rings of Regeneration. This usually leads to me making a list of all the magical stuff I personally wish I could have. Around this time of year, I would love to have a bag of holding; shopping would be a LOT easier!

So, there's my little bit of randomness for today. Not that I really had anything important to share, but it's nice to know that some of you out there can sympathize with my random thoughts. :)

A Post About Nothing

I've been suffering from a bit of writer's block lately. Tonight I decided just to sit down, turn my random idea generator on, and see what happened. I was not quite expecting what came out.

I don't see how I possibly could have -- because what came out was "the Gauntlets of Seinfeld". I wasn't even really crazy about that show when it was on! Regardless, I started to chuckle at a few of the ideas that started trickling out so I decided to share. I didn't quite get to the descriptions of a lot of these, so if you want to add something, please feel free.

• Gauntlets of Seinfeld
  
  Ordinary gauntlets that do absolutely nothing. However, everyone loves them and they were highly sought after until 10 years ago when the maker just got bored and decided to quit making them.
  
  The right gauntlet has strange frizzy hair covering the opening where the arm goes in. And has racial epithets about dwarves written on it. These were intended to be funny due to their shock value, but everyone near the wearer simply thinks they hate dwarves.
  
  Both gauntlets have special attachments for removing the tops from muffins.
  
  You cannot figure out why the left gauntlet continues to hang out with the right gauntlet.
  


• Girdle of Soup Nazi Strength


• The Eye and Hand of Seinfeld


• Festivus Pole of Many Parts


• Loincloth of Protection vs. Shrinkage

I believe the line of good taste has been sufficiently identified, crossed, and stomped on at this point. And no, Stupid Ranger, no E.L. Fudge cookies were harmed in the making of this post.

More "serious" D&D stuff in the near future, I promise!