D20 Gets Worse

So recently I lost my D20 & it appears that his downward spiral continues.

We may be past the time for intervention!

Gamex 2015

Jack & I headed to Gamex this weekend. The highlight was likely the tourists with the dead battery on level four--luckily we had jumper cables & after jumping their car took their fantastic parking spot.

Of course, this spot ended up coasting us US$30 for the day! I am seriously considering finding a cheaper way to attend next con!

This image needs to be on the next Gamex t-shirt--is is definitely my mantra for con:

Jack and I scored tons of Dum-Dums & a great hand fan during registration--which was $30 bucks for the day--EACH! we definitely need to do something about this--$90 to park and attend is just way to much for a day at Con & we still have not purchased nachos, pizza, tube of dice, or any of the other required tools

Speaking of Nachos this was likely our first stop--the food at New Con Location is fantastic

Jack & I hit the Paint and Take minis to get some heroes for our games. Jack had broke his glasses that morning so these are his new two dot pair--which really added to his painting focus.

I made a Slaver with Trident & Net--totally awesome!

Jack totally crushed me with his Bunny with Spear

Then we signed up for games--a little late night Gurps

A great game of Space Hulk--which is not Hulk on a Space ship, as we had hoped

Then some Nuke War in the lobby with Luis

We struggled with a horrible game of Pandemic--actually first time we had won, but we cheated on turn order and some other mechanics so I am not sure we can count it--the couple we played with were awesome--died hair, crazy focused--they had just played some Farting game tournament and were on fire

Our GURPs game was on Star Trek Voyager:

We battled some strange creatures in a mostly non combat type of way which is so popular in GURPS

Our GMs did accidently write on his mat with a wet erase marker, which was tragic.

The big take away from this con was we need to plan more--we did not play any D&D, we did not really game with any people we knew, and we left before 4 in the morning--we will do better next time!

CypherCaster Magazine - Issue 001 (May 2015)

DriveThruRPG is offering the first issue of Cypher Caster Magazine for $4. This is a no brainer for anyone playing and/or interested in Numenera--a good quick read on all the things currently going on with the Monte Cook Games Cypher system--it often reads like an extended press release--but includes a lot of very creative ideas from the community.

The table of contents includes blurb reads:

The first issue of the CypherCaster Magazine includes:

• MCG Spring/Summer product preview
• Shotguns & Sorcery interview with Matt Forbeck & Robert Schwalb by Andrew Cady
• Exploring Cypher Space by James Walls
• “Shapes in the Salt”, Numenera short fiction by Jim Ryan
• “Hunting for Krofwarten”, a Numenera adventure by Chris Fitzgerald
• “Estate Files” covering a Norse Mythology recursion cluster for The Strange by Marc Plourde
• “Holstenwall — A Recursion of Gothic Fear” by Scott Robinson
• MCG Fan Relations News

The stunning cover art by Jeff Brown conveys the vast wonder of the Ninth World of Numenera (or perhaps a recursion in the Strange). A copy of the artwork without the masthead and trade dress will be included for use in your games.

Second issue coming, July 2015

The cover are really is amazing:

And the other art in this issue is fun, playful, and inventive--for example, here is a map:

All of the content is OK, but not all is  fantastic--I am mostly interested in Numenera and not that interested in the Strange or some of the other things that MCG has going on. The short fiction was an easy fun read. I hope that they stay focused on that kind of community creativity part of the Numenera community and not to much in the crunch.

I think that this is a great start to a magazine & expect that the next issue will be a lot better.

Using Fantasy Grounds--Installation, part 1

After listening to a Tome Show Round Table episode on Fantasy Grounds, I finally decided to install it and give it a go.

The down-loader, FGWebInstall.exe was easy to find & ran very smoothly--totally impressed with this & if the 'patch system' which sends updates to content works this well without Steam I will be very impressed.

I do plan to run this on my old mac PowerBook laptop, so this is just a demo install to make sure I know what I am doing.

And I don't...

I get the following after install

I am still confused around what key I need and how I am going to afford it, but the username field also gave me issues

Evidently asking for a logon that I do not think I have created & I cannot quickly find on the download site and/or a way to do it from the client.

Next I start looking for the 5E content that I want to use:

The license is for 4E content & I am still not sure what all of my options are at this time.

At which point I gave up & decided i needed to spend more time on the forums & the discussion rooms & maybe find a specialist that will walk me through some of this.

Review--Round Table 69 - Fantasy Grounds 2

This is a fantastic episode of Round Table discussing Virtual Table Tops--specifically Fantasy Grounds. The blurb has:

James Introcaso sits down with Doug Davidson of SmiteWorks, makers of Fantasy Grounds, and Greg Tito of Wizards of the Coast, makers of Dungeons and Dragons. They discuss the companies' partnership to bring Dungeons and Dragons products to Fantasy Grounds. Then we get a few teases from Greg about the upcoming Rage of Demons storyline! This podcast was recorded on May 7, 2014.

This is the podcast that actually got me to install Fantasy Grounds and start working through setup, license purchase, and the related tasks that go with preparing to run and play in Virtual Table Top Games.

The opening question--"what is your favorite magic item" is awesome & leads to some wonderful conversation around rings of invisibility, bags of holding, &  the Hand of Vecna 

Avenger's Poster Give Away Tea Time

Sean was coming over to pick up the Avengers-Age of Ultron poster that Jack & I picked up for Donnovan and Cody thought it would be a good idea for some Tea!

We went with Lion's Blend from FridayTea's Etsy shop

I am still using the tea pot that I got from Tevana--mostly because I love how well you can reheat and/or brew a second pot without making a giant mess or loosing to much flavor.

The tea looked solid & brewed up nicely

 Sean was running late and since we had to get Kate to dance Cody & I moved the poster out onto the patio

Cody added a lot of sugar



And some white chocolate chips

 It was a fun afternoon.

It looks like Friday has not posted a video in  a while, I really hope that she is not done with that video series--I really enjoy it!

Chris Perkins

“How you DM is as unique as 
how you paint or how you write. 
No two DMs are alike, and 
that’s as it should be.”

—	Chris Perkins, Dungeon Master to the Stars

Actual Play Elemental Evil--D&D Encounters S20 S8

Crisis of the 12

Another great session of the Bake in Vandales garage!

the Future drawing hijinks are back

I took better notes again this week--there is a lot going on.

The snacks were out of control.

I am still playing K>U>B>A the Monk--the latest in a long line of Shardminds that I have played during this campaign.

Cameron is back with a female dwarf cleric--very weird build.

Andrews Bemin is finally starting to be revieled to be the villian he is and/or may be.

Brett has his ganger regularly doing 150 points per round.

James was in fine form.

Brett scored a righteous Fun Dip!

The temple of the Silver Flame was burnt down--again--by Devils. We were able to rescue Leviticus & Marcus.

I think that Andrew is the only one who rolled a crit, those James rolled very well with my dice!