Eleven Again and Blowin' Up Stuff

 I got a wild hair last night.... But I'm getting ahead of myself....

We've been doing a lot of day-trip stuff this year, add we really can't afford an extended vacation. We just got back from a two-day trip to Dinosaur National Monument, which was an annual trip when I was a kid. Faced with some hours in the hotel, I got thinking about what to do instead of TV.

When I was 11, my buddy and I pooled  our money and bought some Car Wars stuff. He bought the books, I bought some maps and counters. I photocopied the book. When we went on vacations, I'd usually spend downtime in the hotel designing cats and running scenarios by myself.

I still have all my maps and counters. The photocopies are long gone. My buddy's books? Burned up in a fire.

This weekend, memories ensued. I picked up a dozen Hot Wheels with the idea of fiddling something together with the  PDFrules I have on my laptop.

That didn't happen.

But my wife and I decided to try a "gamecation" late this year. We have some timeshare access...in a place with terrible TV reception, no phones, no distractions...other than what we take there ourselves. So we're taking games.

Scrabble. Boggle. Sojourner Tales. D&D. May even try some X-Wing Miniatures. A couple others.

So, the wild hair. Tonight I grabbed my wife and headed 45 minutes south to a FLGS in a city down south from here. I knew they had a copy, at least they had one back in February. (Of course I'm this obsessive to remember that.) Sure enough, they had a copy.

Car Wars Classic.

And I bought it. Opened it up as soon as I got home. And I was transported back thirty-some-odd years. I was like a little kid, looking at the counters, the blank vehicle sheets. I started giggling at some point, reading the rules. Yeah, they're not elegant, they're complex, and they're not QUITE the rules u remember...but, yeah.

I think my giggling scared my wife a little.

I know what else we're going to play on our our gamecation. And once my kids know the ropes, I know where I can download a turning key for Hot Wheels.

And my youngest son is nearly the age I was when I first played....My kids are gonna blow stuff up. And I'm going to get to do it with them.

  Warm up the side-mounted flamethrowers and the front-mounted linked twin Vulcans. We're goin' auto-duelin'.

[Found Item Friday] Pristine PHB!

In my city, we have a used bookstore that has been in operation since 1929. It was housed in a GREAT location in downtown, three floors of new and used books, rare books, odd books. Especially great was the basement--meandering corridors, random rooms filled with ramshackle shelving, everything was just on the edge of controlled chaos. It was always great to go in, if even to browse. (It is said that one of the Magistrate Judges at the nearby Federal Courthouse made a visit there every lunchtime of every weekday of his tenure as judge until his death a few years back. I believe it, based on what I knew of the man.) Recently the third-generation owners made a controversial decision and moved the bookstore from its historic location to a nearby mall location.

My post is not about that bookstore.

Instead, it's about the location. A newer, Johnny-come-lately (relatively) bookstore seized on the opportunity and consolidated their three or four smaller stores and moved into the space. The shelving is all a bit newer and more modern, but their selection is just as eclectic as the "historic" bookstore. I hadn't had a chance to visit since the move; all that changed this morning.

About ten years ago, the original owners added a coffee shop to one side of the store front. I've never frequented the place, mostly because I don't drink coffee, but also because their baked goods were exorbitantly-priced, mediocre-quality items. But I had a meeting yesterday and they wanted to meet there to chat.

This was a mistake.

After the meeting, I wandered the aisles. Call it fate, call it karma...I wandered straight to the "game" section. Most of it was Call of Duty guides (and other various video games). But then...the infamous binding jumped off the shelf at me.

Now, you may ask yourself why I'm so excited by this, even though you should know I'm a big 3.x fan. I'd be a lot happier if it was a 3.5 PHB, but I'm still happy with this. Why?

1. It's in pristine condition.
   
2. It's for the use and education of my kids.
   
3. It's "close enough" to 3.5 or Pathfinder. Especially for my kids.
   
4. Did I mention it was in pristine condition? The binding is still tight and the Character Creator disk in the back? Still sealed in the plastic envelope. The Wizards of the Coast order form is also still folded inside the back cover.
   
5. Oh, and it was only $6.00.
   
6. Yes, I said $6.000
   

Yeah. I'm pretty pleased with myself. They also had a 3.0 DMG in the same condition; sadly, I only had so much cash with me yesterday. I figure the PHB will get more use anyway.

Also grabbed was this little beauty: "In the Belly of the Beast" by Mike Mearls. It was only $1.00 and in very good condition; the pull-out pages of NPCs, etc. was still intact, for example. I grabbed it for that fact alone. It's more of a political intrigue than my normal fare, but it still has some good fodder for combat and adventure too. It's got some good, dangerous NPCs with some good backstory; they'll take a little beefing-up, as the equipment lists are fairly generic. Maybe it'll be good for my players to do a little bit more role-playing; it requires the careful negotiation and manipulation of three rival factions who are all ready to fight. Hmm. I'll just have to find the right place to drop it into a campaign.

Unfortunately, the store is now on my radar. NOT good for my wallet.

[D&D 40th Anniversary Bloghop] Day Fourteen

Day Fourteen: Did you meet your significant other while playing D&D? Does he or she still play? (Or just post a randomly generated monster in protest of Valentine's Day.)

My significant other had no idea that I was a gamer for the first several years of our marriage. And vice versa.

As I've explained countless times, there was a large gap of non-gaming time in my twenties. As the turn of the century approached and a new gaming group invited me to join, I went to my wife for "permission," seeing as how it was bound to take time away from her, which, as a new attorney, was extremely limited. The prep and self-psyching for THAT conversation was really interesting!

And anti-climatic. It was more of a "What? You played? So did I!!"-kind of conversation. Come to find out that she also started playing with the Moldvay Basic Set. Unfortunately, most of her gaming stuff has vanished over the years.

As far as still playing, well, she's dabbled. My group tried to spin-off a "wives' group" game; that ended for her with the birth of our son and a changed focus and time-consuming new "hobby." This past New Year's Eve she actually sat-in once my eldest daughter wandered away and locked herself in her room with her cell phone. My wife jumped in and played the daughter's character for a little while; she seemed to have fun. Perhaps it's time to get her to roll up a character and add her in to the group.

Happy Valentine's Day, honey.

[D&D 40th Anniversary Bloghop] Day Two

Day Two: First person who you introduced to D&D. Which edition? Their first character?

I've wracked my brain, sure that I had introduced someone to D&D back in my childhood. The only names I can come up with were jocks who would have had no interest in playing or kids like me that already were playing. Same in high school: everyone that I would have introduced were already playing.

Fast forward to the 21st century, when I picked up the dice again. There was a relative newbie in the group. I know he'd played Robotech before, but I cannot remember if this was the first time he'd played (and so would qualify as my first introduced, as I was a part of the group that introduced him).

So, I think I have to count my oldest four children as the first person people I introduced to D&D. As I've written before, I used the D&D 3.5 Beginner's Box to introduce them and used those pre-generated characters as their first characters.

Cast of Characters
Lanin: elf wizard (17-year-old daughter)
Carn: human rogue (15-year-old daughter)
Regdar: human fighter (13-year-old son)
Dothal: dwarven cleric (9-year-old son)

[From the Mailbag] Gifts from the Golem

Back in November, I received a couple of promotional e-mails from Paizo. They were gearing up for what they called "the Great Golem Sale." (Hint: their logo, if you didn't know, is a golem. See?)

This sale was a chance, so they said, to make room in their warehouse by discounting their backstock: magazine back issues, board games, maps, books, accessories, even miniatures and plush figures. The sale was to run throughout November and would feature "over 900 gaming products...at up to a 90% discount!" The catch was that these items could not be combined with pre-orders, back orders, or subscription shipments if you wanted the discount.

So, I looked and looked. Nothing really grabbed my eye. Plus, with Christmas coming up, it was hard to devote much money in a month with no Paizo subscriptions to fund; all that discretionary money was going to go to Christmas.

Noble ideals, right?

Fast forward to November 30. One final look at the Sale List. Then I saw it. The Babylon 5 RPG Second Edition Handbook. Marked down from $49.95 to $3.00. $3.00! Being such a huge B-5 fan, and having already started to collect some Sci-Fi RPGs, I thought this was a perfect conjunction of planets. I confess, I picked up two copies: a reading copy, and another copy for...well, honestly, I'm hoping to run into a convention someday where the remaining cast members are present and I could get some signatures.

Whether you want to say that find primed the pump or that it burst the dam...either way, IT WAS ON.

I swept through Paizo's library of B-5 materials, adding them to my cart. Then I started on Pathfinder maps and found a couple that I really wanted. I moved from the maps, to the Pathfinder Chronicles and Modules. Somehow I'd missed all this stuff the first time I'd gone through the lists of merchandise. What the heck, I'll pull out my list of missing/loaned-and-never-returned Dragon Magazines; Lo! and Behold! They had a couple on my list. And then I found a miniature that I'd been watching for several years. Now it was on sale. Once the dust cleared and the ORDER button pressed, I was a bit embarrassed with myself. Although, I would have been much more embarrassed to have paid full price. I mean, really.

The wait began.

I waited. And waited. And waited. Finally I had to call Paizo and ask about my order; I was told that they were filling orders as fast as they could. I received an e-mail telling me that one of the maps was out of stock. And I waited. And waited. Another call, another promise that they were filling the orders as fast as they could, that the response was much greater than they'd anticipated. Oh, and "by the way" my order was being held up because they were waiting to receive the miniature from the manufacturer. So I told them to cancel the mini from my order. And I waited. I finally contacted the head of Customer Service through the Paizo website; it was the weekend before Christmas and they were still filling pre-Thanksgiving Great Golem Sale orders.

Then on the 23rd, I received an e-mail telling me that my order had shipped. It's a good thing that nothing I ordered was a Christmas gift. Why? Because I received the order a week later, on the 30th. Still, even with all the hassle and waiting, it was still worth it. This was the haul I received for just over $50.00. (Shipping, of course, hit me in the shorts, but that's always the way, isn't it?) That's a mighty stack, ain't it? I really should have put a ruler up to the side of that stack for reference.

What's even more impressive is the sight you see when you spread it all out. My kids walked in while I was taking the picture; they hadn't seen the order out of the box yet. They all stopped and stared and then cheered.

I've got great kids. It made me grin. And feel a little proud. Like I'd done my job as a role-playing father.

And you remember the Inn I mentioned in the New Year's post? The map that inspired me, and that I used for the Inn, is here at the upper right-hand corner of the stack. It turns out that it's a page-size pull-out from a Dragon Magazine (apparently, although I don't remember seeing it in MY collection) and folds out. to be 17" x 22".

All in all, I'd say it turned out well. Even though the shipping process made me gripe, I'm going to chalk it up to a larger-than-expected sale and give them the benefit of the doubt. And hope it doesn't happen again. I'm certainly going to keep my eyes open for a re-run of the Great Golem Sale this year. And maybe plan on ordering just a bit earlier than the 30th.

Family Game: Session Recap--New Year's Edition

So, time to dust off the keyboard and get back to posting. I'm hoping to build up some momentum so that I can get somewhat regular again. "Blogging fiber" shall we say?

[Aside: Speaking of fiber, has anyone else seen the new television commercial featuring the animated graphic of the purple poo slipping its way through the intestinal tract? ~shudder~ WAAAAY worse than the "blue liquid poured out onto the 'pad' from the glass representation of the female reproductive system" commercials. I'm not even sure what the commercial was advertising. The phrase 'slippy-slidey purple poo' was much used over the holidays in my house, though. End aside.]

So, for New Year's Eve, the kids all clamored to play a little D&D. Several years ago we started a campaign using the WOTC 3.5 Beginner's Box. At the time, it was a convenient way to present the game to them. For those who may have never seen it, it comes with individual Players' Handbooks for each of the four pre-generated characters, explaining basic abilities, stats, equipment, etc. It also comes with some nice map tiles, a set of polyhedral dice, and some basic minis. The basic adventures included are geared to get the characters to 2nd-level and include an encounter with a young blue dragon. (You can read a bit more about the Basic Set at my previous post HERE.)

Unfortunately, we don't get to play as often as I would like (or as often as the kids would like) but we've had some great sessions over the past few years...the most memorable were sitting in our trailer, late at night, in a hidden meadow in the mountains of Idaho. There were some other relatives there in other camps, and all I could think of was how cozy and familial it was to sit there and play, surrounded by my children. That and what shock and horror my conservative relations would feel if they peered in at the windows, blazing with light.

Anyway, I digress. Two year's ago on New Year's we had started playing through Dyson’s Delve. (Again, reference HERE for details of that game.) In the intervening time, the home-made battle mats/maps had been destroyed and lost, I was tired and didn't feel well, so I wasn't up to picking up where I left off. So--and I ask you all to forgive me for this--I used a trite-and-foolish trope: the "wake up in an inn and realize everything that you remember from the last session was a dream." I honestly felt a little dirty about it. But it gave me a chance to use a new map I got just after Christmas (more on that later), an old map from Dragon Magazine of the "Sleeping Dragon Inn." (I got it for half off during the Great Golem Sale in November (again, more on this later).)

Wow. Digressions are afoot this morning.

Cast of Characters
Lanin: elf wizard (17-year-old daughter)
Carn: human rogue (15-year-old daughter)
Regdar: human fighter (13-year-old son)
Dothal: dwarven cleric (9-year-old son)

Plus, my 6-year-old daughter wanted to play, so I quickly statted up a halfling "bard-type" character. She wanted to play a "Hobbit" and to use magic. I asked her if she wanted to be able to "sing her magic" and she got really excited. Then as I was looking for a good mini for her, I came across a halfling outrider mini: a halfling riding a mastiff and carrying a spear. Bingo. Threw her a little bone by giving her a +1 frost burst spear and had everything ready to go: Zarra the Halfling Bard and her trusty mount "Ted" were born. Yeah, it gave her a little bit more "oomph" than her siblings, but I wanted her to be able to do something "fun" that would grab her attention and hang on to her.

The characters all awoke in the inn and wandered downstairs, where they were met by the inn's owner, Bob. I had wanted to use as my basis for the encounters the Pathfinder module: Hollow's Last Hope, mostly because I had run it before and knew it reasonably well-enough that it would balance out my poor health. The basis of the adventure is a quest to find ingredients to cure a plague infesting the town. Well, Bob and the adventurers were apparently the only ones in the inn that were NOT infected. Bob showed them into a private dining room where they were served breakfast; the kids ran into Bob as they explored the inn. Well, they found him slaughtering the pig in the kitchen, actually. My poor kids weren't quite sure what to do. My oldest boy went and talked to some of the sick townsfolk in the common room while my younger boy proposed to go up and look through some of the other rooms. I had to gently ask him what HE would do if some stranger opened up his bedroom door and started rummaging around. He thought for a moment and then said, "Oh. Right. Umm. Never mind. I'll go talk to Bob too."

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!! (And to my Players: this means STAY OUT.)

Once the kids got their bearings, and got some information about the two healers in the town, they set about on their search. They told me their plan, and I warned them about splitting the party. To no avail: half of them went to the herbalist's shop while the others went to visit the local cleric at the temple. The cleric was ineffectual at healing the plague, so my son's questioning offended the cleric. When they met back up at the herbalist's place, my oldest daughter assumed he had screwed up and went to the temple herself; her meddling made the cleric even MORE upset. Meanwhile, the herbalist told them there were three ingredients she needed--strange ones--and that they could help her by finding them. One was to be found near the oldest tree in the forest, one at an old dwarven monastery to the north, and one at a witch's home deep in the forest. My oldest daughter immediately wanted to split the party and send one group to the old tree and the other to the monastery (which is intended to be the climax of the adventure). I asked her if she was sure, and she replied that it was the most efficient use of time. I decided not to pull my punches; I'd already warned them.

The group heading to the monastery ("Group A") traveled deep into the forest before they had a random encounter: a kobold zombie. My littlest one had the highest initiative roll and immediately charged the kobold. She hit first, then the dog savaged the kobold a bit. Then the other two kids in Group A missed their attack rolls and Zarra attacked with her spear again. Well, I'm a bit proud of myself; the image just came to me. This is what I described to them:


Just imagine a cloud of ice crystals coming up from that turkey, and you'll have it exactly: a partially-frozen, completely rotten kobold zombie being burst open. You cannot imagine the gleeful horror expressed! Oohs, aahs, and "Oh, gross"-es. My littlest one started cackling. I felt like a successful dad at that moment. (They had just seen it before Christmas...I knew the scene had made an impression on them and was still fresh in their minds, so I ran with it.)

Group A made it to the monastery grounds just at twilight where they were attacked by two wolves. They dispatched the wolves fairly quickly, again with the help of the halfling and her doggie. She was definitely the star of the night.

Group B, meanwhile, traveled to a logging camp and endured some verbal abuse from the loggers and the foreman before speaking to a woodsman who knew the locations of the tree they were seeking as well as the witch's home. He drew them a map and promised whatever other help he could give; his nephew is suffering from the plague and he was anxious to help the adventurers find a cure. Shortly thereafter, Group B was ambushed by a bugbear. Our rogue got hurt and broke her bowstring (with a natural 1, of course) while the fighter soon dispatched the bugbear with ease.

And that's where we had to leave it, as it was close to midnight. When we pick back up, Group B is in for a nasty, nasty shock when they run in to one of my new favorite critters. Group A will also have a bad surprise when they meet the current residents of the monastery. In both cases, I think they'll learn the wisdom of keeping the party together. I'm just worried that I'll be looking at a TPK.

I'll give you some updates when we manage to play again. Hopefully by this weekend.

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day (one day late) to all my friends and readers out there. Hopefully your day was filled with dice, "lead-free white metal" figurines, and plenty of character sheet goodness.

I know mine was.

My family took me to see a double feature of Men in Black 3 and The Avengers at the local drive-in. Great, fun flicks. MIB 3 makes a nice closing bookend for the series, if they so wish, and definitely redeems the series from MIB 2. The Avengers? There were several moments where I was giggling like a little boy. Loved it. LOVED it.

In addition, the accompanying image is the beautiful homemade card I received from one of my daughters yesterday. (And what thief wouldn't be proud to nab an emerald THAT size, eh? Definitely worth risking the dragon's wrath....)

I think I've done well as a father, that my kids love dragons nearly as much as I do. (I have other signs of my paternal success as well, of course.)

Let me know what loot y'all scored from your wives and kids yesterday.... I'd love to know.

[game report] New Year's TPK (almost)

So the dust of the new year has started to settle, and the post-holiday chaos at the firm has also started to die down (somewhat). I can finally dip my pen and pick up the blog again. I hope that you all had an enjoyable holiday season and have had a good start to 2012.

Heading into New Year’s Eve, my wife and I had planned a quiet night at home with the kids, with copious amounts of reasonably healthy snacks and loads of board games. When she approached the kids with this idea, the unanimous response that morning was that they wanted to play Dungeons & Dragons with Dad.

We’ve played occasionally over the past couple years; I started the four of them off with the 3.5 Basic Game, the 2006 edition of the set. It’s not a bad iteration of the rules...a very simplified version of 3.5 with each pre-gen character (there are four) having an entire booklet for their character. Granted, the way the rules are presented led my children to say things such as, “I want to move my speed, then move my speed again.” It also reveals the nerfed version of some of the 3.5 monsters: just three encounters after reaching second level the PCs are led to face (and expected to defeat) a young blue dragon.

No joke. Allow me to repeat myself here: THE iconic creature of D&D is expected to be defeated by a party of four second-level characters.

Sigh.

At any rate, after running through the encounters contained in the Basic Game in September, I had several different ideas about where to take the characters next. The appeal to play on New Year’s Eve made the decision critical, so I turned to something that I knew would allow for some range of open decisions on my kids’ part and something that would allow for some exposition on detail, backstory, and whatnot. I was also concerned that it pose a serious enough challenge to them that it subdues their memories of killing a dragon so easily. What I decided upon was this: Dyson’s Delve.

I had a “battle map”: I’d wanted to run my adult players through this little gem in the next few months and so I’d already taken some time to prepare some blown-up versions of the first three levels. They weren’t perfect and they weren’t hi-res, but they worked with the kids’ miniatures at 10' per square. And they gave the kids something to look at. And I know, all my OSR friends and readers are apoplectic right now. I know that I didn’t have the maps and miniatures back in the day and I did just fine with my imagination. My kids range from sixteen to eight and have varying degrees of concentration so I’ve found the miniatures and maps are necessary for now.

I also have to admit that I turned to what most consider to be an overused trope: the tavern meeting. Not having a lot of time to plan any kind of set up, I jumped to Digital Orc’s Inn Table. The percentile dice came out and rolled twice giving me The Putrid Wand, a less-than-reputable inn on the edge of the Thieves’ Quarter in Burlingbrook, the town at the base of Mt. Chal (my homebrew location for the dungeon in our Basic Game).

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!! (And to my Players: this means STAY OUT.)

[From the Mailbag] MINIS!

I received a small pile of miniatures in the mail today. This was after I stopped at the store and picked up a box of Pathfinder minis. So, I'm feeling the plastic love today.

Alright, that didn't sound exactly as I'd intended it to sound.

Anyway, I thought I'd share some general pics--they turned out kinda poorly, given my office photographic equipment--and some thoughts about the Pathfinder minis specifically. (This is my advance apology for the quality of the photos.) I'll deal with my mailbag first, then look at the Pathfinder minis in another post.

The "old" Wizards minis are getting harder and harder to find, at least at reasonable values. In this economy, it's difficult to justify to the wife spending $15.00 (or more) on a small piece of plastic, especially when that piece of plastic is smaller than a stick of gum...and your kids haven't eaten dinner yet. Fortunately, there are still some rare finds out there and I lucked into one of those finds to get me some random minis to fill some holes in my collection.

First, the Aspect of Bahamut. I think I've said before that the group has ventured into a dragon-heavy pseudo-Epic 3.X campaign. (I say "pseudo-Epic" because we've collectively agreed that the Epic Level Handbook was one of the most broken pieces of publishing trash to come out of the 3.X-Wizards era. We're all simply 26th level.) The DM allowed my Cleric to develop a "Summon Aspect of Bahamut" prayer to combat the dragons we'd be facing; once that was done, it was obvious that I needed a suitable miniature for the table. (The DM for this particular group is a stickler: if you want to summon a creature, you better have the miniature...although he kinda let up on that a little once he demanded a player produce a dolphin and a squid miniature the character wanted to summon and the player plopped one of each--in appropriate scale--down on the table in front of him.) I've seen/heard a lot of complaints about the paint job/scheme on this miniature so I was a little hesitant to order it. I must say, though, that the pictures don't do it justice. There is a lot more subtlety to the colors than you would expect. I would have liked to see a little more range with the colors, but all in all I'm quite pleased.

The kicker was hearing my older children say, "Oh no, Dad! Is that for our game?!? Auuugh!!!! My (fill-in-the-blank-player-class) is going to die!"

Heh.

Next out of the box were the rats. Rats are somewhat difficult to find, for some reason. Maybe it's because all DMs use rats as typical low-level sword fodder. I know that's what I'm using these for; the first few levels of Dyson's Delve are filled with giant rats and that's what the family's going to spend Christmas Vacation doing. At any rate, here come the rats; I have to make do with what I can get, and what I got was:

1. Dire Rats (4)
2. Diseased Dire Rat (1)
and
3. Ravenous Dire Rat (1)

I already have six of the "Rat Swarm" counters that I can employ, so I should have my rat-needs covered.

(Again, that phrase sounded better in my head.)

Those needs should be especially well-covered, considering that the next thing out of the box were a blister pack of Reaper's plastic offerings: three giant rats from their Legendary Encounters pre-painted plastics line. Also included was one of the Reaper plastic ghosts. Because, hey, who doesn't need undead...especially with the Pathfinder Carrion Crown adventure path on my shelf? I'm slowly compiling a list of minis for use with that particular set of adventures; it's simultaneously easier and more difficult, seeing the wide range of minis needed, contrasted with the range of Horrorclix models that there are, contrasted yet again with the limited availability of said Horroclix models. [Sigh] (Which reminds me: I need to go searching for Horrorclix (or other) models that will suit a flesh golem and some werewolves. Werewolf minis are scarce and expensive. (Stupid question of the day: Do you think people like werewolves or something?) In fact I need two flesh golems, a pile of werewolves, and some items most likely found in a C'thulhu range. Ugh.)

Speaking of Dyson's Delve, another critter that I need for that dungeon-crawl was solved in today's package, at least partly. Dyson's first level also include several giant ferrets; this is something I didn't have in my collection, mostly because I'd never seen the use for them. Well, to be honest, I'd never actually SEEN a giant ferret miniature; but hey--then I got thinking, once I saw the need for the critter: "Hey, weasel? Ferret? What's the difference?" (Please, don't take that as an invitation for all you weasel- and ferret afficianados out there to point out the distinct differences between the two.) At any rate, I now had a need, I ordered them, and should have sufficient to torture my kids allow my kids to chase around the caverns.

Rumbling around the bottom of the box was a mini that I forgot I'd ordered: a Dragonborn Paladin Death Knight. I hadn't gone in search of one of these when it was originally released, specifically because it was evidence of one of the things I find wrong with Wizards of the Coast and their miniatures philosophy: namely, "let's make a figure that is a combination of classes and races so obscure and arcane that no one will ever want one, because this is of course what every miniature-hunter is looking for!" AND I KNOW YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT I MEAN.... When I was looking for bargains, however, I saw this one for under $1 and I thought, well, I need a deathknight, I can use this as a stand-in and just ignore the dragon-skull on his shoulders. So I ordered one. And here he is.

It wasn't until I was cataloging all of these miniatures that I realized that I had apparently "pulled" one of these deathknights previously from a booster purchaed at the FLGS. So I already had one. Now I have two. If that isn't strong enough evidence about how insignificant this class/race combination creature IS, I don't know what would suffice. Yep. I now have two of something of which I never really even wanted ONE.

Well...that's the extent of my mailbag today. The shipping box is now empty, the minis are all catalogued and sorted into their different storage boxes. Coming up soon: my review of the Pathfinder Beginner Box Heroes miniatures.

O is for Opening Doors

As some of you may know, I've been running a game for my rugrats.

And by "running" I mean off-and-on for over a year whenever we get around to it.

It's been a lot of fun--we've played into the wee morning hours in our trailer; we've played during power outages, we've played both with and without Dad using his laptop for DMing.

I've been using the dumbed-down version of 3.5 released as the "Basic Set" (the 2006 version). This box set contains an "introductory version" with miniatures, dice, and dungeon map tiles. It also contains a sheet of tokens representing doors, chests, treasure, etc.

The kids have loved it and I've enjoyed it as a cut-down version of the rules; it allows me, as DM, to implement and introduce additional rules and features of the game as we go.

One frustrating thing, though: as always, the Wizards of the Coast team do an amazingly bad job of consistent and intelligible detail.

G is for Grick

There is a slimy creature, grasping and vicious, that lives in dungeons. This foul abberation lies in wait for its unsuspecting prey to pass below it, then pounces and attacks until its victim is rendered helpless.


No, not this creature.

G-R-I-C-K, not G-L-I-C-K. That would be one of these:

Although I can understand why there would be confusion. There's a striking resemblance, and they both have voracious appetites. Not to mention those grasping tentacles.