Laser Cutter Update

I took some time to knock out a few projects this weekend. I created two different-sized boxes using an online template, finished a couple more bowls, and my wife added two requests for her plaque holder. 

It's really cool to have a laser cutter, but it is difficult to pick out which items to spend time on. 

The boxes are 9x5x2 1/4 and 6x4 3/4x1 1/4. They don't really suit any particular project I have in mind, but I will use these to practice staining and painting. Once have the finishing bit down, I will scale them up to hold figures and models.

What size would be best for figures? I'd really like to stop storing my Battlemechs in a terrium to protect them from my evil cats.  

The lids are totally plain, so I might add some designs to them. I don't really have the knack of double burning, where I cut out one lid and then burn an image on it, so I need to work on that process. 

Also, this particular type of wood is very "pitchy". The brown streaks in the images aren't an imperfection in the wood; it is the tar-like material that comes out of the wood when I cut with the laser. 

You can really see this substance in the images of the bowls. The small hexagon bowls are 5 3/4 by 1 1/2, while the larger ones are 6 1/2 x 2 inches. These examples highlight my lack of skill in finishing items. I tried painting some and finished the others with beeswax. I do like the beeswax finish. 

I can sand that brown stuff off, but with each layer of the bowl being 3/8 inch wide, sanding this one project is difficult. Sanding the boxes is a snap. This also highlights a couple of problems with these types of projects. I will hit on this last*. 

I don't know what the last two items are called. My wife purchased some home decor from 15 Monkeys. These included door hangers, signs, and these "plaques", for lack of a better word. Beth, the owner of 15 Monkeys, does a couple of subscription packages which we really enjoy. However, there are only so many Disney-themed items you can have in one home. My wife tends to switch up the subscriptions. 

You should check out 15 Monkeys on FB and on the website above. We have so many cool things designed by Beth. 

Jen asked me to make a couple of Dave Matthews Band-themed plaques to go in the holder she got from Beth. They are really easy to make if you have the measurements and a good idea of what you want. In the first image, you can see the DMB Coffee Rings, and a fire dancer in the second. 

What makes a good design is all in the finishing. Beth's 15 Monkey's designs are perfect, every time. These, not so much. My wife likes the natural wood, but that style doesn't match the holder. I might simply place hooks on my designs to be used as wall hangings. 

The last issue is, I'm happy to make my wife or myself something quick and kitchy. However, I have this vision of actually selling items. I don't have a storefront; I am just an online digital retailer. While one of my outlets does support physical goods, I am stuck with the twin dilemma of what style/size at what price? 

Costing out materials is easy. All of the items in this post cost less than $3 in materials. 

The machinery cost is higher. I have two computers, a laser cutter, a tablesaw, 3d printer, and a host of other tools I need to produce these items. As I use each tool, the price per item goes down. That is weird.  

Costing time is something else. Worse, getting good at something takes more time than the actual production of a finished good. My time is worth something. 

For this example post, I ended up creating 12 bowls (6 unseen), 6 boxes (4 unseen), and 2 plaques. All of these are non-saleable items. I think I need to think in terms of projects, as opposed to time to create and assemble a single item. 

I am not sure how to proceed, but you can be sure to see some new and unique items on my websites. 

 

Building a World of Magic

If you are running a fantastic, magical campaign, this places some limitations on what your world is like. I see many campaigns being played in a gritty, realistic fashion to avoid magical consequences. Magic is mysterious, and the sword is mightier than the magic scroll. I like this style, but most of my players don't like it at all. It's a step away from a wargame or a video game. 

As a consequence, magic is real and common in my campaign. In fact, it is a consumer product. Characters are often running around with fire beads and magic lamps. They have access to all kinds of magic at the get-go. There are mysteries to the magic, but the sort of mysteries that people think of after a six-pack of beer at 3 am. 

"Gee... Vorpal Swords are a really specific type of magic. Why would anyone do that?" 

This sort of twist creates all kinds of weird issues in my campaign. For example, no one is really surprised by clerics and magic users casting spells. In fact, even the lowliest turnip farmer knows if a spell caster starts waving their hands, grabbing their thumb or nose stops the spell. It's fun but also ridiculous. 

This means I have some house rules to cover these scenarios. 

In the aforementioned scenario, it only takes a to-hit roll against armor class 9 to grab someone's nose or thumb. It stops the spell, not injures the caster. Since it is so unexpected and simple, I also have a follow-up rule for foiled spells. If you get hit BEFORE the spell is ready, it's like you never cast. The caster doesn't lose that spell. 

However, getting hit AFTER the spell is prepared but before the caster can do something with it does cause them to lose the spell's effect and the memory of the spell. I like this because the caster got tagged at the exact wrong moment. It's a magical fumble. 

I leverage this against the ever-stupid "called shot". I don't impose penalties for called shots. If you are in a fight, it is customary and normal to try and smash someone's head in, stab them in the heart, or lop off a hand. Why impose a penalty for something that is totally expected? 

Speaking of fumbles, I don't do them unless someone is completely untrained. And the worst effect is that the fumble results in the weapon being dropped or thrown. This is something a noob does, not a professional warrior or assassin. I have several pairs of nunchucks. I've seen this a million times. I do not permit players to injure their characters with poor rolls, but comedy may ensue. I will even throw experience points at someone who roleplays a fumble.   

So, what do I do with fumbles for professionals? That's easy. If 1 is the worst that you can do, and the worst that a knight can do is miss, then they swung and missed. They look bad, but didn't drop their weapon. 

My house rule for missing the target on all odd numbers, 1 to whatever, you tried and missed. This tells me when someone hits a shield or completely wiffs. It's handy to know which is which without much math and record-keeping. 

Alright, what are even number misses? That's even easier. Since the person is highly skilled, an even number failures represents a case where they didn't even swing or attack. They knew they would miss and didn't bother. This is more important for missile weapons, because they never throw. The user still has the missile weapon, and it is ready for the next round of action. 

One of these days, I will sit down and unpack all of these fun house rules and share them all in a coherent fashion. 

Let Me Off, This Is My Stop

I have a lot of hobbying going on, so the blog will go off the rails for a while. I haven't felt like doing reviews or a post series lately. I have a stack of games ready to go, and I'll be spending time enjoying them. For example, I have X-Wing and the new Marvel game collecting dust. I don't want them to end up next to the Myst RPG, Unwritten, I always meant to play. 

Speaking of Myst, this blog started as a Myst fan site, and it changed into something better because I started writing about other stuff I also enjoy. I don't plan to go too far afield on the blog. If you like oddball stuff, please follow me on MeWe. I post about music, gardening, and giant rabbits in addition to games. 

Tonight's topic is obviously about railroading players in RPGs. Typically, I post about D&D, but refusing to railroad players is good form for all RPGs. 

I think that railroading comes from a couple of places:

A. The DM provides a setting for players to engage in storytelling. Having created that setting, the DM wants to tell their story. Sometimes it's hard to break the setting from a story, and painful for the author to let their setting free to have different stories. Obviously, this comes from all the time the DM invested in creating it. But there is a difference between setting and story. 

B. The next reason is shock and awe. EVERY player on the planet can flabbergast the DM with a wild and unique set of choices that defy all coping because it is so correct for the scenario. Get used to it. Even the best improvisationalist will get caught out by a wily player who says something smart and correct. 

3. Sometimes, railroading is good, but it is rarely "this time". In this scenario, the players and their characters choose a path, do or die. As a DM, this is the time to railroad. The scenario becomes a one-trick pony show. The players laid out the parameters, you have to perform. Make sure you have all of your ducks and dice in a row and let them have it. 

Part D. There are many ways to "win" and the players always decide what winning is to them. Sometimes it is simple survival, and other times it is obtaining something they want. The DM picked the presentation events; they don't get to pick what is viewed as valuable to the players or characters. The players may value defeating the dragon more than taking the treasure. 

Now that I have spelled out why railroading happens, here are 4 options to avoid it. 

1. and 2. If the players don't like your setting and scenario, or come up with something else, let the characters out. The easiest way to snap the players out of a specific set of circumstances is to forget the players and listen to the characters' voices. This is an important distinction. The characters are the participants in your setting, not the players. If the players say, "Aw, not pirates again," forget it. If the character says, "I'm never getting on a ship again," run with it. What the player says is an observation; what the character says is an instruction. 

The opposite of pirates is a dungeon. Don't try, just do it. Again, without railroading. Let the party explore other options. 

The obvious problem with a change, or when you get caught flatfooted, is what happens to the original story you set out for the players?

Personally, I like the slow fade. You don't need to express how surprised you are by the change. "Stay cool, man." The story happens without the players. Make sure they get news about it; it keeps your setting intact without overshadowing the players' activities. In the pirate vs. dungeon example, the players may return to town after slaying the orcs to witness an epic battle in the harbor.  

The outcome of a massive battle in the harbor will have to conform to reasonable expectations, but doesn't need to impact the players except to provide a simple point of interest. Your setting is still there and intact. 

"Yup, that was too dangerous." Let the players be right. This also covers Option C, when you are forced to perform a desirable railroad. Let the players have fun being right. 

You may have to tool up or down to hit the right notes, but it can work. If the characters demand a massive set piece battle, don't be surprised if they outperform you in every way. It is 4 or more brains against just you. You are going to have to tweak things to get it right. You might be shocked to find the 15 giants you threw against the players aren't enough because the two major traps the players overcame at the start of the adventure are now being used against the giants. Just remember, when the characters do things to the giants, they aren't doing anything to you. Celebrate the madness and creativity. 

Part 4 is the easy part. There is no "winning" in an RPG, except for the continuation of the game. Run with that and keep it coming. 

Stolen Ideas from the Krynn Series of Gold Box Games

In the Dragonlance lore, there are 3 moons named Solinari, Lunitari, and Nuitari. They were aligned with Good, Neutral, and Evil, and they share their names with gods. As each moon waxed and waned, a spellcaster aligned with that god gained or lost magical spells.  

The Krynn-based SSI games did an excellent job tracking this. When you have the brain of a machine, such things are trivial. It can become a basic design element for your interface. 

The white, red, and blue orbs note the moons and their phases. The game even allowed bonus magical spells when this happened. I never bothered to figure out when more spells were available, availing myself of the advantage whenever they became available. 

I thought it was a neat system, but unfortunately, bringing it to the tabletop proved intractable. How would one track the changing of phases and rising of moons in a game world? It was too hard. 

For me and my players, there was a strong belief that magic users were squishy, and I always dreamed up new and utterly intractable ways of empowering spell casters. Invariably, most of these ideas were panned by my players and shit-canned by me. But this idea of bonus spells stuck with me. It was already hardcoded for Clerics in AD&D and appeared on our character sheet.  

Having a formal character sheet is very handy, and I was super cool for being able to print a character sheet at will instead of using notebook paper, graph paper, or purchasing a handful of bright orange character sheets. 

The magic system in Krynn is not a great mechanic for an RPG. But it does make an incredibly realistic world. Welcome to Black Monday when you are at 75% while your nemesis is at 150%. And it ain't getting better any time soon enough to matter. That is a very real-world mechanic. 

As neat as it was, presenting this lunar influence in a tabletop game is both impractical and not very fun for a variety of reasons, such as making squishy spell-casters even more squishy. However, what we did do was simplistic and fun. Magic Users and Illusions got bonus spells like Clerics and Druids, except the deciding factor was Intelligence. 

I recall one of my players pointing to the character sheet and mentioning how close the lines for Bonus Spells were to Intelligence. "Wisdom is only one box down. We don't even need to redesign our character sheet!" 

We had no mechanic for losing spells, nor did I track the phases of the moon(s). That made everyone happy. We did discuss it at length, but could come up with no practical way of using it without being a rolling disaster. 

This one change was so ingrained into my mind that I forgot this was even a house rule or where I got it from. It was from the Krynn series of Gold Box games. 

You can check out my character sheet on DrivethruRPG or from my store on Ko-Fi. Or you could pick up all of the e1 modules on DTRPG. 

A Non-review of Champions of Krynn

I was told I would love Baldur's Gate. And from what I have heard and read, it is great. However, I need a new hard drive in my laptop before I can play. Me, being me, I got a copy of the SSI Gold box from Steam while I wait for this hard drive to arrive. 

So, here we are: 

This is nothing like Baldur's Gate. But it does bring back memories. The SSI games were the greatest implementation of the AD&D rules as a tactical game. 10 of 10 for that. It is a very strict version of AD&D, but they did it very well. 

I am not reviewing Champions today, even though I played it when it came out. The issue is time compression. I've got all of the Gold Box games jammed in my head. I remember what happened the last time I was in Krynn, and it didn't go well. 

I got my hands on DL-1 Dragons of Despair, and my player didn't get it. By 1988, I had Champions and tried again. The gang still hated it. The reason is that my normal free-form play is very fairytale-like, complete with voice. That is the opposite of Dragonlance. This was amplified by my getting the setting in my head from the SSI game. I was simply confusing them by not understanding what they failed to understand. 

Hmm. I had to do a mashup of Dragonlance, Fritz Lieber, and Dungeonland before my players would even engage with the wonderful world of Krynn. Click that link to read more. 

Anyway, now that I have both the SSI Gold Box games and paper copies of the Dragonlance modules, I want to revisit and review them all. You can check out copies of Dragonlance here on DTRPG. 

One of the failings of Dragonlace is that it came out as both e1 and second edition, which was a nightmare for DMs and players alike. D&D, AD&D e1, AD&D e1 Unearthed Arcane, and AD&D 2nd edition are wildly different beasts, and having a single setting title hit shelves in this period was a rotten deal.