Poll Response 11

So, our games are equally spread throughout time, from 1974 to 2012. Interesting. Anyone have any ponderings on this subject?

Fortress

Click to embiggen.

You can...play RPGS?

Rian Alasuum

Admittance: I have never played a table-top RPG. I'm new to the hobby, having GM'd on and off in 2006-2007, and really starting to play  in early 2011. But I've never had a playing role-until now. One of my players has created an entire homebrew system and campaign setting, and we played a solo game this week. The system is very simple, focusing on four main attributes (Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Agility) and very, very heavy on roleplaying use. Many skill checks are just "rolled" through. The world is one of tense survival, where everyone boasts some sort of elemental affinity. Because of this, even Jimmy the blacksmith's apprentice can whip a fireball at your head. However, as a direct result of this widespread power, magic is rare. My character was named Rian Alasuum, an elven fire-wielding rogue. I also know a little magic. For some reason, I had a lot of fun.  And, it gave me insight into the"player's mind". So GMs, try playing a game or two. It's fun, and beneficial to your GM'ing career.

Learning From Skyrim

-Placing questgivers in population locales, and leaving it up to the players to discover quests.

-Dragons are special.

-Monsters are scary. They are intimidating.

-Everything should be detailed. The villager's home should contain foodstuffs. The mage's castle should hold spellbooks.

-The world should be immersive. It should feel real.

We Have Explored the Tomb, Dueled the Sith, Stopped the Thieves, and Ate with the Djinni

This is what happens when you run four campaigns. I'll describe the Star Wars game today, and the others later.

Star Wars (Old Republic Era)


Players-Kodo Anarath (Young Jedi-in-Training)
Kaheed Mitrus-Cyborg Bounty Hunter

Dath Malgus

Kodo had received a message from higher-ups in the Republic army, instructing him to head to the underground starport on Imperial-dictated Orion IV. Here he met a greedy bounty hunter, Kaheed Mitrus, his assigned partner. They were to head to Orion I, where Kodo's master's killer, Darth Malgus, had been seen. They flew to Orion I, and once reaching orbit, were stopped by Imperial forces. The Republic had provided new identities, and dressing like good little Imperials, they welcomed the guards onto their ship. Then Kaheed fired his blaster arm into one, and Kodo used the Force to lock one in the closet. Unfortunately, their identities were revealed, which ensued a hectic space battle. This was a great opportunity to try out West End Games' starship battle mechanics, which proved perfectly fun and exceptionally chaotic. After a lot of blaster fire, the Imperial ship was destroyed, and the characters plummeted toward Caventor City on the surface. Luckily, they landed nearby and simply walked to the city, stashing the unconscious Imperial in an alleyway. They were told Malgus was approaching the Cloud Cover nightclub. After a bit of bribery, they made their way inside, blending with the crowd, until Malgus and his apprentice entered. Malgus commanded Kodo to make himself known, yet Kodo hid. So Malgus took a hostage and threatened the Jedi. Kodo appeared, backed by Kaheed, and Malgus killed the hostage anyway. Then Malgus began toying with the two, throwing them around the club and occasionally dodging their poorly made attacks. His apprentice then engaged in fierce lightsaber combat with Kodo. This was an opening for Kaheed. The bounty hunter fired his blaster rifle at Malgus, who retaliated by throwing Kaheed to the ground. Kaheed, a master sniper, then lodged a blaster bolt in the Sith's stomach. Kodo pushed away the apprentice and went to finish him. Yet then the apprentice used Force Lightning, and with Kodo's last embers of consicousness, he saw the two Sith escape.

It Has Been Done

The Great Blog Hunt is over. All of you write extremely well, and I enjoyed every post. To celebrate, today will be a gaming day. But what to play...

The Official Anthem of Adventurers Everywhere

And So Begins The Great Blog Hunt of 2012

I have a confession. I have not read a blog in over 2 weeks. And so, in order to atone for this momentous wrongdoing, I will faithfully dig through each of my followed blogs and read every single post I missed. Wish me well. I'll post updates as I go through this gauntlet.

4 Campaigns and Lovin' It

Firstly, this marks a exact two-week blog hiatus. Secondly, my three-person gaming group is playing four campaigns at once. Not only are we continuing our Pathfinder campaign, but we are playing West End Games Star Wars, Resolute Adventurer Genius, and West End DC Universe Role-Playing-Game. Tonight was character creation night.

Resolute, Adventurer, Genius- RAG is a relatively rules-light system that is set in the glorious world that is early 1900s pulp. The created characters are Billy Steel, a naive American cat burglar, and Marc Jones, a materialistic smuggler.

Star Wars Roleplaying Game- I Gm'd SWRPG a few years ago, and the campaign ended after a few sessions. No one was properly gripped or entertained. So we threw out the  Imperial-Rebel war setting, and replaced it with the Jedi-Sith epics of the Old Republic. The first character is Kodo Anarath, a young Jedi obsessed with hunting down his master's killer, Darth Malgus. The second is Kaheed Mitrus, a Yaka bounty hunter only satisfied when a full credstick is in his pocket.

DC Universe Roleplaying Game-I found this game for two dollars at the local library. What I love about the system is the high-quality character creation, which allows for very cool power customization and equipment generation.The first character is Pulse, an energy-wielding former Marine. The second character is being planned now.

A Retrospective

This year has been, gaming-wise, a great year.

Firstly, I started blogging this year.

We began our GURPS 4e campaign in March, and ended in July.

We did some one-shot Pathfinder games in August-November, and officially started our campaign this month.

I bought or was given:

Various gaming apps,

The Pathfinder Inner Sea World Guide,

The Pathfinder Bestiary,

The DC Universe Role-playing Game

Many, many free games,

The Pathfinder Core Rulebook,

The Chessex Pound O' Dice,

 and two Chessex Dice Sets.

I'll review some of those items soon.

Not to be sappy, but this year also initiated my entrance into this great community of fellow bloggers, gamers, and general ruffians.

Overall, an awesome year.

Happy New Year's!

PhotoShop Friday 12-30-12

This week's PhotoShop is, as usual, a picture edited. From Tron Legacy (a fine film, soundtrack's even better), it's Rinzler. I focused on glow points like the identity disc and Rinzler's helmet and brought those out, while filtering the image for contrast, color separation and blending.  I don't like the weird brown triangle on Rinzler's waist (not sure how it got there), but overall I think it turned out pretty well.

Poll Response 10

This latest poll was about A Song of Ice And Fire, George R.R. Martin's fantasy epic. 37% of readers liked the books, 12% loved them, and 50% haven't read them. Key learning: Pick more widely known poll topics.

Obsidian Portal-The Home of the Campaign

To the right (on the sidebar, see) is a new button! Click, and be transported through the dark mists of the time-space continuum  to...Obsidian Portal, another  home of our campaign. Here we've got character descriptions, magic item descriptions, and, uh, some campaign updates will go up soon. Pretty bare-bones right now, but it'll grow as time goes on.

The Game Table-Playing Outside

70 degrees in December. Gotta love the Southwest.

We Played Warhammer

Space Marine Biker

Well, sorta. we played DIY Warhammer, which meant making up rules and printing out paper minis from not only Warhammer, but Warhammer 40,000 and Lord of the Rings.

The objective was to retrieve a sword on top of a hill and bring it back to our base. Our armies were directly across from each other. So I sent a Space Marine Biker to do a strafing run on the enemy frontlines and distract them enough to allow my Wargs to move toward the target.

Wargs

Unfortunately, the Biker took two bolters and a burst of machine gun fire, taking him out quickly. So the Wargs sprinted across the battlefield, followed by Lord Ragnar Blackmane of 

the Space Wolves. Alas, even that did not work, as three Wargs were 

dead before they were even close to the hill. Meanwhile my opponent had

a small squad moving toward the objective. I focused fire on them, and Ragnar

got in a lucky shot. Combined with some crossbow fire from 

Empire troops, we took out an Ork.

My Imperial Guard Sentinel marched toward the opposing army, although not without being hit by a powerful ballista shot . My Centigor follows the remaining two Wargs. I wished to intercept the opposing team heading for the hill. I moved my heavy cannons and warmachines toward the enemy, prepared to ravage their forces. Yet the enemy had focused on ranged combat, and my army was pelted with bullets, bolts, arrows, and flame. 

So we lost. But it was fun, and therefore it was a 

Imperial Guard Sentinel

good experience.

Centigor

Merry Christmas!

100 Posts!

This is Off to Jupiter's 100th post! Thank you, readers, commenters, and contributors. It means a lot to me and I enjoy our daily arguments, rants, and observances. *grin* I'd like to show some statistics and notes on the blog's history.

Off to Jupiter has been up since May 2011.

The month with the most posts has been July, with 39 posts. That equates to an average of 1.25 posts per day.

The month with the least was this past November, with a vapid four posts. This equates to an average of 0.13 posts a day.

Readership is highest in the US, followed by the UK, Canada, and Mexico.

The month with the most hits was August 2011, with 1, 553 views.

The month with the least was November 2011, with 676. This suggests a direct correlation with posts!

The tags with the most related posts are RPG, Role-Playing Game, and GURPS.

There has been 9 polls in Off to Jupiter's 8 months.

Off to Jupiter's very first post was about a new wave of DC Universe Classic action figures.

The first post with a comment was about a new GURPS supplement. Thanks, Tim!

On July 26, 2011 I won the Newbie Blogger Award. Once again, thanks, Tim!

On October 14, 2011 I started to do PhotoShop Fridays.

Thanks, everyone. Merry Christmas, and Happy Hannukah and what have you.

PhotoShop Friday 12-16-11

I haven't done a PhotoShop Friday in what, a month? I need to step up my game. Anyways, today's is Thor themed. I took a movie picture and threw some filters on there in order to give it a distressed look. Then I tinted the picture blue, and intensified the light sources. So, I think it looks pretty good, although I would like to avoid the "scribbly" quality of the pic.

Moments in Gaming

-When a player role-played so well he got three mercenaries to work for him and provide him shelter, food, and equipment.

-When the Star Wars bounty hunter forced us to cut the adventure short because his quarry was dead after two well-placed blaster shots.

-When we tied the warrior to a ballista bolt and fired him at an enemy fortress.

-The battle between a band of mercs (above) and the Assassin's Guild after one player secretly tried to kill the other player. But the target had a team of warriors, and the attacker had around seven assassins.

-When the players assaulted an underground gnoll base and discovered that lit oil, does, in fact, burn things. However, when you light 6x6 underground passages on fire, it's hard to get out.

Just feeling a bit nostalgic today. Thinking about past adventures and looking forward to new ones.