Warhammer Notes 4/23/12

Last night, Max woke up from his horrible dream, where almost everyone was killed except for Belle, who was wise enough to run bravely away. Even though Max seemed a bit troubled, we stayed an additional night to heal our wounds, which were many. Then, we took off to get to the Red Abbey. Belle ended up being the guide, bitching all the way. Eventually we made camp in the woods, and right before bed we heard the rustling in the leaves, which ended up being A.U.S.s, Arachnids of Unusual Size.  We fought them off, though it took everything we had. During the whole encounter, Bartleby and Wilhelm both got bitten and poisoned, and Belle suffered a nervous breakdown. After several waves of dead spiders, we thought we would get a break, but then their mother showed up and she was pissed. Eventually we killed her, too, and Max and Wilhelm took her fangs for trophies. Bartleby ate some of the dead spiderling in an effort to get rid of his poison (and possibly to creep us the hell out). After some group discussion, we decided to try to find the spider base camp, because they might have killed other travelers and we might be able to loot. We found the home of the spiders, but saw traces that there might be many more. Since we were messed up and in no position to fight, we rode on.

We ended up riding to the base of the Red Abbey where we found an abandoned village. It was creepy but sheltered us, so we put up with it. We also noticed that around the abbey were terraced gardens with hops on one side and barley on the other. We thought that we saw someone watching us, but we were not sure.

The next day, during the bright morning, we roughly corralled the horses in the abandoned village and made our way into the abbey. We were greeted by an undead gardener monk, Bother Aaron. He was the one guarding the gates when the Von Kriegs betrayed the monks to the vampires. He went in to get the Abbot. We eventually went inside and met the Abbot who was very unhelpful. He would not let us have the chalice which was taken by Brother Garef. He said that it would give the Von Kriegs too much power, since they would have an unlimited amount of blood. Belle did a lot of pleading, but the monks would not give the chalice and they would not directly go and fight the vampire. They did give us beer and a box of weapons. They also showed us a tree they had made that showed all the Von Krieg vampires that they knew about, 20 in all, with Werner being the youngest. Then, the monks learned that Wilhelm was a Von Krieg and all hell broke loose. Brother Aaron the gardener challenged Wilhelm to combat. Max held Bartleby back, and Belle left with the box. Wilhelm defeated the Brother, and everyone left with meet up with Belle. When we met we opened the box to see it contained 10 vials of Sigmar Blessed Holy Water, 6 hard wooden stakes, and 1 pendant of Sigmar. With that discovery we set off to defeat Werner and save the village.

Gaming VS Role Playing

I am getting ready to make two more Warhammer characters. Yep. One is a one-shot character for a small rescue adventure and the other is very important, because she is going to be the main character for our new campaign. I don’t want to make any new characters. I have an attitude against it. I couldn’t figure out why, until I started writing an email to my good friend.

I don’t like playing new characters. Our gaming group has a running joke to say “I hate X” whatever X is. But it is true. I hate playing new characters. It feels a lot like going on a first date. I don’t know anything about this person, I’m not sure that I want to, and I am more than a little self conscious the entire time. I rarely have a perfectly good picture of who my character is or what they want when we first begin. After I have played a character for a while, at least 8-10 games, I have a much better idea of who they are and what they want. Slipping their personality on is like putting on my favorite high heels, the ones I can actually run in (and have!).

The thing is, two of my friends love making new characters. Though both are accomplished role players, they self define as gamers. It is a game in some ways to get their stats just so, or to see what new characters they can make. One of my friends created 100 D&D characters because he was bored once. That sounds like a layer of hell to me! I self define as a role player, but no I do not LARP and do not care to.

Don’t get me wrong, I will create my new characters and like them. We will have fun adventures together and eventually I will know them as well as I know Zarnian or Candy, but right now, I am ready to leave the cycle of 50 First Dates.

Amassing an army…

For a very long time, I held a remarkable record in gaming. I had the same character for 18 real months of campaign, gaming almost every week. For those of you familiar with Warhammer 3rd edition (and if you’re not, get familiar, you’ll love it) I had over 40 XP with Candy. She would kill or heal with relative ease. I knew her in some ways better than I knew myself. I used her life to help me work out issues with my own. She was another version of me. I loved playing her.

Everything eventually changes or ends. It came time for Candy to retire. It was the only right decision for her, really. She just married the love of her life, they adopted a daughter. She needed time to be with her family and recover from all the bad stuff that just happened. It was cool. I was cool.

Rel was my next character. Putting on someone else’s skin was harder than I thought, and that part of the story was very dark. A few games before it happened, I had a good idea how it was going to end. I was right. Surrounded by guards, about to be captured, Rel killed herself. It was the right decision. I was still cool, but anxious to create a character I could be with for a while.

So Jason allowed me to just pick a class, something that normally people have to do by random in Warhamer 3rd Edition. I wanted to be a wizard. I had never tried anything like that. Together we decided my character would be from Kislev, and an Ice Witch!! I created magic cards unique to my background and read extensively on Kislev. Last night, I lost that character, too.

Now I have to create another character, this one temporary to finish out the mini story we are on, and then likely another character when this arch is over. Yep, that is 5 characters in 4 months. Sigh.

My response is perfectly logical. I am going to amass an army. Now this is not like my friend Eric’s character army. When he was younger he got bored and rolled up over 100 characters. He created so many that our friend Wil created a special dungeon whose sole purpose was to kill those characters off. My army will not be characters. My army will be a troop of female miniatures, so I have a great mini for any new character I need to create. Two by two, like the arch, I will get at least two of every race and class I am interested in playing. After all, a great female mini is hard to come by (which would make a great blog topic). I have been on Reaper’s website www.reapermini.com for over an hour now making my list of possible figures, and earlier today I bought my first two. After all, games are unpredictable. The least I can do is be prepared.

Now while creating an army of minis is a little extreme, have you ever bought a mini because you thought they looked cool? Have you ever created a character based on a mini that you love? I find myself now wanting to play a game with vampires just based on some of what I’ve found but first I need to create a warrior that can deal with the Chaos Wastes, and hopefully survive the next two or three games…

Preparing for the End at Creation

There is one question that one of my best friends asks me often about my characters: “What is your character’s endpoint?” It always struck me as a bit of an odd question, because I while I have a good idea where my character is going next, I never would swear where they will end up. Meanwhile, even when my friend is creating a character, he has a good idea where he wants that character to end.

I think that some of this is due to what systems we cut our teeth in. My friend has played a lot of D&D (and tons of other systems), all versions. In that, you have a pretty well defined character path, and there are certainly rewards for plotting out your character’s entire existence before you get in and play.

Meanwhile, I learned by playing Warhammer, 3rd edition. In that, you can change your characters career completely at any time. What your character’s career is ties in heavily to the story line. For example, in my gaming history, Candy is the best example. When I created her, she was a barber-surgeon. Then, in game we needed someone who could pick locks and sneak better, so I had her train with a thief and become a thief. When it came time for her to change class, she had to assassinate the man who killed her parents. Welcome to being an assassin! Then, at long last, with that done, she was able to finally go back to her roots, transitioning to physician. If I had continued playing her, I planned for her to train in apothecary next, but who knows? All the other careers were reactionary, except the first and last.

I really do think that while end points work with other systems, they do not with Warhammer. Even my friend that introduced me to endpoints got burned in Warhammer. His original concept was to take his character from pauper merchant to noble. In the words of Phil from the Hangover, “Yeah. That’s not going to happen.” When that character left the group on he was a duelist and a bit of a lovable scoundrel, but no closer to being a prince. Matter as fact, he had just learned his biological father was not a noble, but a Reiklander merchant.

Is it better to know the character’s end toward the beginning? Are you exactly where you thought you would be when you were a kid? As a kid I thought I would either be a single comic book writer or a single scholar. I am a very happily married chef. I thought I would have a daughter by 27. I am past that age with no child of either sex in sight. If the system rewards you heavily for knowing where you will end up, or offers you limited options, then by all means, make a rough sketch. But if you have never tried just going with the flow, try it and see if it helps you immerse yourself into the world.

NPCs VS PCs… is there a difference?

There have been several games recently when the issue of whether an NPC (non-player character) or PC (player character) have different values in the game. Obviously, PCs are those characters played by the gamers at the table. NPCs are those characters that the DM plays, but are essential to the story line and inhabit the world just like the PCs. The interaction between the PCs and NPCs is what pulls a story forward.

I think that much of how you feel about NPCs vs PCs depends on how you see the game and the world. I my mind, the gaming world is just that, a world. It is filled with people. My character, Zarnian in Dark Sun, for example, just sees people. Hamdi killed her lover. Denning is one of her best friends. Barok is like a brother. Two of these are NPCs, one is not. It does not matter.

But, I find that some players, especially those coming from a Dungeons and Dragons background, see player characters as being better and superior to non player characters. Somehow, no matter what other player characters do, it is ok, because they are, after all, player characters. My friend told me in the past she gamed with a guy who had his characters just start killing simple farmers in a bar because he was bored. That was the only time she played in that game.

Another thing that some players do is treat NPCs like tools to be used and discarded. One player had a history where he had been raised with another character (a NPC) their whole lives, but he said “I would let him be killed in a second if it meant me getting away”.

I game because it allows me to easily submerge into another world. That world is populated with many other people. In fact, it is filled with a world’s worth of people. Five or so of those are my fellow gamers, but the rest are technically NPCs. However, I don’t see any differences between any of them. Some of good, some are bad, some I kill and some I protect with my life. Trying to see a difference between them drives me insane.

But that is just my experience. What is your gaming experience? Do you see NPCs and PCs as fundamentally different or do you see them the same? If you see them as different do you see other parts of your world as being artificial? Does it feel like you’re in the Matrix? If you see them all as the same how does that affect your view of your gaming world?

Zarnian’s Journal 9/15/2011

We escaped Tyr, but needed a place to shelter. Ohzon has many contacts here and suggested that we shelter with Lady Jamaya, a Sky Follower who has a great deal of wealth. The estate was only about 15-20 minutes’ walk outside Tyr, so we traveled. When we arrived, the guards would not allow Ohzon access to her. They were four well armed city guards, but luckily, one of the serving girls saw him and altered the Lady. She asked us to return the following night, but said that we could not stay because her husband was there. She also has a particular contempt of slaves, which she assumes Barok and I are. Leaving the estate for the night was what we needed, but it was also where Cael was supposed to meet us. Therefore, Padras and Xanus stayed behind to wait and hide in the Farrow fields so she would not be alone when she came. Ohzon, Barok, and I found a small inn on the roadside from town. It was packed due to the fact the gates had closed early that day. Ohzon paid another to leave their room, so we could have it.

The next night we traveled back to the estate as we were bidden to do by the Lady of the estate. She ushered Ohzon inside where he apparently showed her more than the wonders of the sky judging by the happy sounds coming from inside. Meanwhile, we were given berth in the slaves quarters and cactus needle bread. Cael still had not appeared. Padras was visibly shaken. He was starting to fear that something has happened to her. We made plans to go into town the next day but that night he showed me what he was carrying – scroll with writing unlike any I had ever seen. I gave him my paper, quills and ink and helped him copy it. The following day, we traveled into Tyr. Since we were hoping to attract the minimum amount of attention, just we two traveled, wrapped in desert gear. The guards were not concerned about who they allowed inside, so we slipped in. Then, we headed for the elven market. The place was swarming with templars and other guards, some of which immediately started staring at Padras more than was warranted. I overheard that a male wizard had been killed. Immediately in my heart I knew it was Aegon. Padras did not want to believe it, but instinct is what keeps you alive in the ring, and mine told me our link to the resistance was dead.

Once we traveled back to the plantation, we found the others in the Crodlu barn. Ohzon said that while Lady Jamaya traveled to Tyr in order to arrange other prominent templar husbands and wives to meet Ohzon, but she came back in tears because her husband had killed one wizard and captured another, this one a woman. We all knew that he was holding Cael. Ohzon searched the house for clues. He found a crystal. Xanus read it, discovering that Cael was being held in Under Tyr and the templars were trying to break her mind.

We are leaving the plantation and heading for Tyr. We will either rescue Cael or we will die in the attempt. But I will save Cael for Trakas. I will not fail.

Issill’s Journal 9/12/2011

Hi to all those who read this blog. Last week you might know that my normal Warhammer Character Rel killed herself. This made the most game sense and character sense. This is still the Warhammer game, but it now follow the adventures of Moh instead of Ian for a while. My new character, Issill is an Ice Witch Apprentice from Kislev as you can tell. Read on and write with any questions.

-Madelyn

Issill’s Journal 9/12/2011

My mistress and I arrived in the city of Nuln. We are tracking a weapon of great chaos power that the Ice Queen wants to know more of. It threatens us all. Being only a novice, it is a perilous and frightening journey but I will do as commanded.

My mistress learned that a local professor at an engineering college has knowledge of the weapon. He has a student, Hugh, who likes me a bit more than I find comfortable, and he invited me to a party. Since I might be able to gain insight into Hugh and the professor then, my mistress commanded me to attend. It was unlike I expected, filled with drugs and sex. The professor took many drugs. As he was passing out I leaned over, whispering in his hear to tell me about the cannon. He said it spoke to him, that it knew his name. One of the professor’s older students was writing in a book, and had the same chaos look as his mentor. His name was Adolphus, and propositioned me sexually, so I did what I needed to. I pleasured him in exchange for looking at the journal. Inside was a picture of the cannon and ever increasing madness in his words including “It knows my name! How can a weapon know my name?” I left his side, returning to Hugh’s. After the party was over, I asked where I could meet him later, then went to meet my mistress. After telling her all that I knew, she said she would deal with Adolphus who wanted to meet with her later. She commanded me to meet with two dwarves that might prove useful to our pursuit of the cannon.

First, however, I met with Hugh and convinced him to help me steal Adolphus’ journal. He agreed, thinking it was a prank. We went to his apartment with a duplicate journal in which Hugh had written bad poetry and drawn pictures of penises. However, when we arrived at the apartment, it was apparent that he left with the intention of not returning.

At this point, I decided to involve the dwarves. Hugh accompanied me. We made contact with them. After talking to them and learning they are as dedicated to discovering the cannon as I, the surly dwarf, Moh, proposed that we return to Hugh’s apartment to look for clues. We did, and discovered a small crawlway behind his dresser. I entered, encountering walls full of notes pasted to the walls. These notes show that he was working on the volley gun and it slowly corrupted his mind. The last entry was about killing my mistress. Then I saw the image of Slaanesh it corrupted my mind, leaving only the perfection of numbers swirling around.

I recovered enough that we knew we had to find Adolphus. We traveled to the imperial college of engineering in time to see a huge covered weapon being escorted from the college. The quiet dwarf and I followed the cannon while the grumpy dwarf and Hugh stayed at the college. After we had traveled for a time following the volley gun, I saw Adolphus join the guards with the journal in hand and a horrible gleam in his eye. I feared for my mistress’ life. Leaving the quiet dwarf to follow the cannon I ran through the streets, asking about Mistress Anya and where she might be. I finally found a small bar where she was supposed to be. I found traces of her magic but not her, only a bartender and three men. When I tried to demand where she was, they attacked, after proclaiming they had ‘Killed one bitch’ and could kill another. I managed to freeze one, but the magic was not easy to draw upon. Then I got shot with a crossbow bolt and stabbed. Bleeding badly, I ran from the bar and made my way back to the location I was supposed to meet the others. They got me some medical help but I refused to rest, instead insisting that we chase the cannon.

Once we arrived at the cannon’s location, a barn outside town, we prepared to attack, but saw it was too late. Adolphus, the eight guards, and all the population of this small town were slaughtered by Chaos Knights. The cannon is now in their hands. We must pursue the cannon and recover it if possible, or destroy it if not.