Something I didn't get into in the last post about our weekly gaming sessions was our use of props. We don't often use miniatures or grids, as there's too many rules going on there. I rather enjoy ignoring any rule that slows down play (if you have to look it up it isn't worth using) to keep the action going. I do make liberal use of maps and pictures though. Here are two of the white boards I used while we went through Rise of the Runelords, our first Pathfinder campaign:



This one is contains some of the non-player characters the group met during their adventures in and around the sleepy little town of Sandpoint. Of particular note is the group at the middle labeled the "Company of the Black Banner," who were a rival adventuring party that tried to overtake the characters as the heroes of Sandpoint.



I also use a board specifically for important events that occur to paint a better picture in the player's heads. The three pictures on the left are from the very first adventure when the party was enjoying the yearly Swallowtail festival when goblins decided to try to burn down the newly rebuilt cathedral. The girl at the right (clearly more an event than an NPC...) ended up mistakenly married to Matt's character Valeros after a night of drunken revelry that involved a doppleganger and an evil cult.



This is a set of maps I made for our one-off Call of Cthulhu session. The one marked "Baker's Island" is actually based off a real location that I felt really exuded the feeling I wanted in the game of an isolated place where evil could lurk unnoticed. The small town on the right is also modeled on a real town in Massachusetts where the group, having escaped death at the hands of a tentacled monstrosity on Baker's Island, met their grisly ends as a horde of zombies rose from the dead to consume living flesh.




This one is a combination Events/NPCs/Handouts board from the Call of Cthulhu game. You can see two newspaper clippings the investigators found about a meteorite falling over Baker's Island and an entire family being massacred in their Massachusetts farm. There's also images of a journal entry, a piece of an ancient magical tome, and pictures of Shub-Niggurath, the nightmare thing that nearly messily devoured the group during their misadventures. It was a great time playing a game where the group knew ahead of time that none of their characters were likely to survive, as it led to some amazing scenarios. Reporter Mac Hartley was the first to fall, fighting naked when the cultists broke into the group's hotel rooms. Whether devoured, driven insane, smashed to bits during a crazed high speed chase, or consumed by the hungry dead, each character eventually met an unpleasant end - and it was a total blast.

That's all for now, as I need to start getting set up for tonight's game. The anti-heroes of Korvosa are going to have to finally leave their burgeoning criminal empire behind and head out into the open plains. Who knows what trouble they will get into with the various Shoanti tribes who roam the plains?

Weekly Gaming

We've been running a weekly gaming session for a couple of years now, which recently switch from Monday nights to Saturday nights due to changing work schedules. I usually run the session, although sometimes we switch off and one of our players Glen runs a game of Scion or Vampire. After coming off a stint of Alternity (a pre-D20 system sci-fi game by TSR) we returned to our Pathfinder game.

We've worked through the first adventure path (Rise of the Runelords) and most of the third adventure path (Second Darkness). For one reason or another we never actually finished Second Darkness and went back to the second adventure path (Curse of the Crimson Throne) instead and made new characters with the new Pathfinder RPG rules. Pathfinder originally used the D&D 3.5 rules, but using the Open Gaming License they now have their own take on the rule system. Many dub the system "3.75" as it improves on 3.5 but doesn't go in the direction of fourth edition Dungeons and Dragons, which requires miniatures and grids to play.

Here's what goes on behind my DM screen setup:



And here's what the players see from their view:



Megan got me the Pathfinder GM screen you see on the left, and it's super sexy. Unlike most screens it isn't cardstock or even thin cardboard - its actually the sort of material that would be used as a board for a high quality game. The cover art has all of the "iconic" Pathfinder characters which are, in order from left to right, Kyra the Cleric of Saranrae (None of our players ever took her. Playing a good cleric who has to act altruistically is basically anathema to our group), Harsk the dwarven ranger (Changed by Glen into "Harsk the drunken monk," who believed it was his religious duty to start a bar fight in every town they encountered), Ezren the wizard, Valeros the fighter (Whom had many misadventures, including mistaken identity, drunken marriage, and an unfortunate fall off the goblin fortress into the sea), Seoni the Varisian sorceress (Whose constantly exposed cleavage caused dozens of rape attempts), Amiri the barbarian (Who, upon failing her sneak roll, began singing "the quiet song" at the top of her lungs), Seelah the Paladin (Hahahaha, a paladin? Not gonna happen.), Lini the gnome druid, and Seltyiel the Eldritch Knight (Serious daddy issues - Twice).

We are just about to finish up the "Escape From Old Korvosa" adventure and move onto the next entry, "A History of Ashes"



Our current group has thrown party balance into the wind, as it consists of four rogues and a sorcerer, with no access to a healer. Of course they've been involved in all sorts of misdeeds (that happens when one of the party worships Zon-Kuthon, the Hellraiser inspired lawful evil midnight lord of pain and suffering), from trafficking with devils, refining a more virulent form of the blood plague instead of stopping its spread, and slowly taking over the criminal underworld of the city of Korvosa.

Here's a picture of an earlier gaming session when we were playing a one-off Call of Cthulhu game:



My laptop is hooked up to the Xbox 360 through a wireless connection to stream music appropriate the scene. Since it was a Call of Cthulhu game I used lots of disturbing and weird stuff obviously, like the "Somnium" album by Thou Shalt Suffer (an earlier keyboard heavy outing from Ihsahn), and the "Obscuritatem Advoco Amplectere Me" album by the infamous Abruptum.

Here's Glen and Crystal during the gaming session:



Matt recently brought me home an industrial spinning D&D case from his job, as they were just going to throw it away when they were done with it. I've been using it to showcase my pretty hardcovers and put books within arm's reach of the bathroom for easy reading :)

Here's two of the four sides, showing off Forgotten Realms and World of Darkness:





I swap each side out periodically, but right now the other two have my Pathfinder books and my Star Wars books - first edition (d6 for the win!), second edition, and D20 edition.

Any trip out of town, at least for food fanatics such as ourselves, is going to be defined by the dining options. We actually plan our route based on the restaurants located along the way to our destination. Our recent trip to Salt Lake City was no exception. Why would I be willingly going to Utah? The back story can be found here.

Our first stop along the way was at a chain restaurant called The Texas Roadhouse. We first found this little gem on a short weekend trip to Billings and wanted to go back to try more. It has a redneck, country music style atmosphere, but it actually works for the type of restaurant it is. They put buckets of peanuts at your table so you can crack them open and drop the shells on the floor, which is always fun. For steak lovers it really can’t be beat either. When you first walk in they have all of their meat on display and you choose the specific steak you want them to cook for you. One of their best options isn’t a New York strip or a Ribeye however, it’s actually a chop steak called the “Road Kill.”

Words fail to describe how incredibly moist and juicy this steak gets, and the seasoning is absolutely perfect. They top it off with sautéed onions and melted pepper jack cheese, which leads one to think it would also be great as a sandwich. There are a lot of side options and you can’t really go wrong with any of them. The steak fries are thick and seasoned well, and the mashed potatoes get the job done. The cactus blossom appetizer is something that shouldn’t be missed either. It’s positively massive and their seasoning and dipping sauce is easily as good or better than those found at other places famous for the blooming onion like Chilli’s. For the faint of heart there is the half sized baby blossom, which is pictured here.

Iced tea fans should pick one up while they are there. It’s a dark and heavy brew that has a very thick tea taste, which is perfect for a hearty steak meal. You can find the whole menu at this location.

When we checked into the hotel we found they had a very interesting variation on flavored water in the lobby. Instead of lemon or limes in the water they put small pieces of melon and orange rinds. It was a totally different take and has me rethinking how I’ll be jazzing up my water from now on. The melon gives it a very fresh taste with a just a hint of sweetness.

Coming up next - adventures in sushi, grilled pizza, sweet potato fries, and more!

The fam and I took a couple of days off and headed to Salt Lake City for a Muse concert this past Sunday. Now, it should be stated for the record that I don't particularly like Muse. In fact it would be safe to say I actively dislike Muse. They are moderately tolerable as background noise, but further inspection in the music leaves something to be desired. Muse has a fake veneer of progressive rock, but its only skin deep. Any serious study of the music leaves one thinking they've heard this backing beat about a million times before on any radio friendly track (there's even a song that sounds like it could be a dance floor hip hop hit if they added in a little rapping). To be blunt: Muse is a band that lets people feel they are listening to something outside the mainstream, while they are actively listening to the mainstream. To each their own and all, I mean I obviously like music other people despise, but Muse is so not my thing.

Now the family on the other hand loves Muse, so there I was headed to Utah, land of the Mormons. Yeah, I know, the last place I should be with all my anti-religious rants. I've been there before, and my initial impressions were reinforced on my return trip. There's a lot of fun stuff to do there, but holy shit you have to wade through some nonsense to get to it. The first thing you'll notice on the highway into Salt Lake are the billboards - of which most are advertising for liposuction or some form of weight loss program. Yes, this is a shallow town focused solely on outward appearance and social appearances. But they can't help it, they're Mormons. One of the remaining non-liposuction billboards had the whole car laughing for a good long time. "Have a problem with porn? We can help!" Well, if the problem is that I don't currently have enough, maybe they can help me...

Things got even more absurd when we reached the hotel and saw a newspaper sitting on the counter top. I can't even make this stuff up here. The headline on the front page actually read "EVIL TARGETS FAMILIES." Take a moment to absorb that. How did a journalist not feel dirty writing that down? "Evil" isn't a thing. It's not a tangible person like Osama Bin Ladin, nor is it an organization like Focus on the Family, nor is it a law or political policy or anything else. It's just whatever the hell anyone wants it to be. What precisely is this "evil" supposed to entail? Who is the source this "journalist" used to find out about this evil? If you can't show a picture of it, list its address, or provide a source who has seen it, then it isn't newsworthy. But again, they can't help it, they're Mormons. They didn't think through their headline too far either, since it should actively encourage people to either stay single or shack up and live in sin. Evil only targets families after all, so why start a family and be targeted by the great cloud of unknowable darkness and doom that only Mormons are somehow able to detect?

Nonsense aside, there are some pretty cool things in Utah, especially for someone like me who lives in a relatively small place. The outdoor walking mall is something that really takes a full day or two to explore, and its very appealing to the eye. Mormons may believe some absurdly crazy things (even more crazy than standard religion!) but their constant focus on physical beauty does make them keep their city incredibly nice. You won't find garbage on the sidewalk or dirty streets here. The fountain light/water show is pretty spectacular, although the overblown orchestra music makes you feel like you are in a ridiculous fight scene from Pirates of the Caribbean.

For the gamers amongst us Salt Lake actually has an amazing hobby shop called Hastur's Games. How in the hell a Cthulhu themed game store that sells role playing and card games managed to take root in Utah is beyond me, but man I'm glad it did. I knew I was in the right place when I walk in and see Elder Signs painted across the walls and Cthulhu fanny packs and altar statues in the display case. Their role playing selection was out of this world (pun intended). Old, new, in-between, they had pretty much everything. There was of course a ton of Cthulhu stuff, from Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu to the new Cthulhutech game system.

We mostly play Pathfinder, and I wasn't disappointed in my options there. They had almost everything Paizo has released so far, so I picked up a couple of the Adventure Path books I missed out on previously, which were "Legacy Of Fire #2 - House of the Beast:"



and "Council of Thieves #1 - The Bastards of Erebus:"



I was particularly interested in the rules for variant tieflings in "The Bastards of Erebus." I had to chuckle at the introduction to the adventure path when the author was discussing how the adventure assumes the party is generally chaotic enough to be willing to oppose the oppressive government in Westcrown (former jewel and capitol of Cheliax, now city in decline since the death of the living god Aroden). Being chaotic isn't an issue with our party, and generally causing havoc wherever they go is the rule, rather than the exception.

Initially I was a little leery of "House of the Beast," since is a big dungeon crawl, which I don't particularly care for, but Paizo again delivered the goods as usual. The backing stories of the dungeon's inhabitants, the various side information, and the way the dungeon is structured allows for massive story telling opportunities. I especially appreciated how the party can recruit or work beside several evil creatures who are opposed, for one reason or another, to the main bad guys. That helps me out, as our party almost never consists of altruistic or selfless adventurers.

They also had tons of preconstructed decks from old Magic the Gathering sets, so I picked up the "Sacrilege" deck from the Torment expansion, which was one of my favorites way back in high school. Combining white and black in a Magic deck is an all around awesome thing to do.



I probably could have just wandered around for hour looking at all the books and minis they had, but alas we had to move on. After picking up a Jamba Juice (except no substitute - we have a "Junga Juice" here at home, and its disappointing to say the least) we noticed their Super FYE had a sign saying all CDs were 9.99 so we had to check it out. It was an awesome deal, so I picked up some of those albums I only had the digital copy of from the record labels for review purposes. We also had some really great sushi that day, but I'll get into that in the next blog which will only cover our food adventures in Salt Lake.



Later on we went to a lingerie/porno store called Doctor John's, which again shocked us for the very fact that not only did it exist, but it was massive. More lingerie than I've ever seen in my entire life. They had a policy where they have to keep your ID the entire time you are in the store, which I'm guessing would piss off all the 40 somethings who very much don't look like they are under 18. It probably makes Mormon guys nervous too, as the whole time they'll be wondering if the lady at the cash register is looking up their bishop in the church directory. We didn't end up buying anything after browsing through, as the prices were absurd. To give an idea - they were selling the same brand of lube we buy from Walmart, but at three times the cost. (For the record, no bottle of lube should ever be in the double digit area, and certainly not in the "almost thirty dollars" double digit area.) We did notice one cute little Salt Lake City-ism though - they used white out tape to cover all the nipples on the movie covers and clothing tags. That's so cute.

Weirdly enough there was also a movie theater next door that was also a pub. Yes, you get to drink while watching a movie. Unfortunately we didn't have time to catch a flick that day, but we'll have to next time. We did see a movie the first day of the trip in the theater at the outdoor mall though (love the ability to pick your seats from a touch screen and buy your tickets from an automated machine!). "Clash of the Titans 3D" was pretty lame to be honest. The 3D was a tacked on after thought, the constant injection of lame humor did not help the movie, the action scenes were too choppy so it was hard to tell what was going on, and the characters constantly changed motivation (I hate the gods, no wait, the gods are awesome so go ahead and use their gifts, no wait, I hate the gods again!). It was basically a popcorn action flick in the vein of Indiana Jones, so if you dig that sort of stuff you'd probably like this.

That's all for now, more to come tomorrow!