Previously, in Trip's Life...
28 February 2009 - Saturday
Gaming: Getting up in the morning was hard, but my
estimate as to what time we should say we were leaving in order to actually
leave by the correct time was just about on the money, and we successfully
arrived in Roseville to play Al's Ptolus game.
In this session, our heroes mercenary adventurers were
hired by the mysterious head of the republican movement (who is also a
high-level priest of a god of prophecy) to investigate something called the
Idol of Ravvan, which is apparently the source of the fiendish blue gnolls
and might be on Brandywine Street. Also, they were asked by the lord of
Castle Shard to investigate a wanted dark elf named Shilukar, who was
trying to buy his way into protected guest status with knowledge of how
repair the guy who had been turned into a golden statue. Not much
information could be exchanged for fear of scrying, but someone else there
mentioned that Sillikar was probably also related to, or at least aware of,
the Ravvan issue.
There was a brief diversion to find out why Noreena's cute but brainless
friend Phon (now pregnant by a prominent local businessman who happens to
be the brother of the republican leader who just hired them) had gone
missing. It turned out she was being guarded and cared for by an
orginaztion called the Fateweavers, probably with her boyfriend's
connivance since she was in one of his warehouses. No one thought this was
her idea, but she said she thought it was for the best and she's nominally
an adult, so the party sat on James to keep him from going on about demon
babies and left her there.
At one point during all this, Erica was accosted by a swarm of bats in a
human disguise, who were very curious about why she was helping a mugging
victim and accused her of being funny-looking before sending her home. At
another point, Karl came home to find a white-haired ninja girl searching
his room, but she escaped before he could find learn her motive.
After cautiously investigating and then staking out the obvious creepy
vacant lot on Brandywine, they finally observed someone flying in and
out cloaked by magical darkness and decided to go for broke. As soon as the
flier left, they used the magic provided by the republican to break in to
the secret underground complex, bypassing the traps and wiping out the
gnoll guards (who still cannot stand against the power of the ancestors).
There were a few complications (giant fiendish blue gnolls, the idol
driving anyone within 30' mad with bloodlust, gnollish reinforcements), but
the group successfully absconded with the idol, which no one had really
expected. (Fortunately a thin coating of lead foil was enough to keep it
from driving passers-by mad.)
Their first commission was more than fulfilled, but no information
about Shilukar had been turned up, so they prepared for a second raid
on the (hopefully now less well-guarded) complex.
Food: There was a great outcry, so we went to Mizu
and had all-we-could-eat sushi and stuff. Ayse became very very happy.
Silly Computer Games: Only a tiny bit!
Cats:
When I got home, there were still twelve paws, all fuzzy!
Writing: VACATION.
Shilukar by Al (Mon Mar 2 17:16:34 2009)
There was also the plot thread about poor Phon, but that didn't appear to lead to anything except a decision to be out of town around the time of her due date, just in case.
And some woman with white hair tossed Karl's place, and a Mysterious Stranger asked Erika why she bothered to try to help a helpless guy and whether she'd ever really looked at herself.
Make a comment!
27 February 2009 - Friday
Work: Continued FAIL.
Random Encounters: Some kids on the street
complimented my hat!
Visual Entertainments: More Veronica
Mars. I still think judicious use of grenades would be
appropriate in many of these scenes.
Silly Computer Games: Yep.
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Writing: Check, more or less.
Make a comment!
26 February 2009 - Thursday
Biology: I, for one, do not welcome our barrel-eyed
overlords.
Work: Continued FAIL.
Visual Entertainments: First episode of
Veronica Mars. Wow, that's a lot of doom. There are enough
sympathetic characters that I don't actually want to explode the entire
town, but there are a lot of SUVs in Neptune that need grenades.
Silly Computer Games: Huh, it looks like house
membership in School
of Magic isn't at all exclusionary. Everyone can join everyone
else's house (if given invites)!
Cats:
Ghirardelli is back to scratching at the paper recycling bag to get me
to chase him.
Writing: FAIL.
Barrel Eyes by Jeremy (Fri Feb 27 09:00:20 2009)
...Since when do fish have nostrils?
Re: Barrel Eyes by Trip (Fri Feb 27 11:21:09 2009)
They're actually "olfactory capsules" or something like that. Apparently mixing up the apparatus for smelling and breathing is a peculiarity of one particular land-dwelling group of fish that humans happen to be interested in for some reason.
Make a comment!
25 February 2009 - Wednesday
Work: Sent a ping about Facebook, but no one knows
nothin'.
Visual Entertainments: Dr Horrible's
Sing-Along Blog was rejected as being icky, so we watched more
xxxHOlic. Yay more Zashikiwarashi and Amewarashi! But I
cannot believe Yuuko wore that to a snowball fight and did not
end up with a bodice full of snow. Truly her power is great!
Silly Computer Games: Yay! People are joining me in
School of Magic!
Cats:
Twelve paws of scampering!
Writing: FAIL, with a side of suck.
Make a comment!
24 February 2009 - Tuesday
Work: Still no word from Facebook.
Visual Entertainments:
- Rose of Versailles 26-27: I wonder if this is where
CLAMP got that thing about eyes.
- Kaleido Star II 11: Sudden emotional reversal!
- Black Lagoon 7-8: Rock seems to have developed a
potentially life-threatening case of backbone, but fortunately it's
intermittent.
- Bleach 115: Yay! She's back!
Silly Computer Games: Oh yes.
Cats:
Twelve paws, with extra purrbucketing!
Writing: FAIL.
Make a comment!
23 February 2009 - Monday
Work: FAIL.
Visual Entertainments: First disc of Black
Blood Brothers, an extremely shounen series about vampires. It
was okay, although not great.
Food: I lured Marith to Armadillo Willy's with the
promise of burgers, and she did not die.
Silly Computer Games: Spent way too long trying to find
someone I could mug for maximum profit in School of Magic.
Oogh.
Cats:
When I finally went to bed, Marmalade came and purrbucketed me more
extensively than he has in a long time! He can be such an affectionate
cat!
Writing: Check, kinda. Maybe.
Make a comment!
22 February 2009 - Sunday
Gaming: Thrace! We set off into the swamps to find
the Lizard Imperator and make him stop being a problem, which of course
led to us being ambushed by lizardmen and Lycoris getting dragged under
water. Fortunately she has magic to deal with both grabby hands and
disgusting swamp water.
We did finally meet someone who claimed to be the offspring of the
Lizard Imperator and tried to make a deal with it, but it doesn't look
like we're both able and willing to give it any of the things it wants,
so we'll probably just have to kill it.
Silly Computer Games: Yep.
Cats:
Aspen was so adorable with her serious little face that I couldn't
resist scooping her, but she though I should have tried harder.
Writing: FAIL.
Make a comment!
21 February 2009 - Saturday
Random Encounters: Marith and I stopped by Angie's
birthday party, which was full of people I didn't know (and some I did
know, admittedly). I don't remember any of their names, but they seemed
nice.
Visual Entertainments: Second disc of Hyper
Police, which really wants to be an RPG. I wonder if there will
be a D&D4 Modern at some point.
Silly Computer Games: I need more people in my house so I can do the
higher-level quests, but no one is answering my invitations, probably
because they're all in much cooler houses. Sniff.
Cats:
Aspen was so cute I couldn't resist trying to scoop her, but she was
able to resist being scooped. I don't think it traumatized her much,
though, since she didn't flee from me for the rest of the day.
Writing: FAIL. Because I suck.
Make a comment!
20 February 2009 - Friday
HAPPY HAPPY JIM-DAY!!
Work: I think the phone interview with Facebook went
okay. They asked many technical questions, which I answered. They did
not laugh at me to my face. Hopefully I will hear back from them soon.
Work, cont'd: The company in Portland has deemed me
inadequate, at least temporarily removing the need to worry about moving
to Portland.
Food: We took Earl out for his birthday (which was
a couple of weeks ago, but we were busy giving him No Germs at the time)
at Lavanda, which had
good food but less good service. A fine time was had by all!
Silly Computer Games: Yep.
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Writing: FAIL.
Make a comment!
19 February 2009 - Thursday
Work: Facebook wants to phone interview me again
tomorrow. Huh.
Gaming: Scheduling is hard, let's form the post-scarcity
utopia where robots will do the work for us.
Visual Entertainments: Orgazmo, which
is a very silly movie.
Silly Computer Games: Yep.
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Writing: FAIL.
Make a comment!
18 February 2009 - Wednesday
HAPPY HAPPY ANGIE-DAY!!
Work: Both of the companies I had phone interviews
with last week have apologized for being too disorganized to render a verdict
at this time. This is frustrating, but on the other hand it means it
wasn't a no-brainer to reject me.
Gaming: Earthdawn! After surviving the most inept
assassination attempt ever, we attempted to distract an evil magician
with ancient knowledge and hot elven babes while rescuing a prisoner
from his mansion. The credits rolled just as we were discovering how bad
of an idea this was.
Silly Computer Games: Yep.
Cats:
I noticed that Aspen was sitting on the place where a pillow usually
goes, so I picked her up by the scruff and put the pillow back under her
and she did not explode at all!
Writing: FAIL.
Make a comment!
17 February 2009 - Tuesday
Work: Harassed people for feedback on last week's
phone interviews, but fruitlessly.
Visual Entertainments:
- Rose of Versailles 25: Fersen is an idiot.
- Kaleido Star II 9-10: How is this person still alive?
- Black Lagoon 6: Fortunately there is no no disagreement
about how much neo-Nazis suck.
- Bleach 113-114: Well, that can't be good.
Silly Computer Games: Yep.
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Writing: FAIL.
Make a comment!
16 February 2009 - Monday
HAPPY HAPPY HEGEMONY-DAY!!
Weather: Not as much as yesterday.
Work: FAIL. But it's a holiday.
Visual Entertainments: Second disc of Code
Geass. Still cool.
Silly Computer Games: Blargh.
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Writing: Check. Huh.
Make a comment!
15 February 2009 - Sunday
Weather: Check, and then some!
Gaming: Somehow, I ran an entire session of D&D4
with only two rudimentary combats (the dragonborn fighter beating up a
junior student and getting beaten up by a senior student at the dojo he
wanted to join). I'm not sure if this is FAIL or WIN.
However, many apparently dead bodies were successfully stolen, and no
apparently innocent morticians or medical professors were murdered, so it
was a win from someone's perspective.
Next session: more violence!
Visual Entertainments: First disc of Code
Geass. Okay, that's pretty cool. When it is all out, I'll
probably show it at TNA.
Silly Computer Games: Yep.
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Writing: FAIL.
Make a comment!
14 February 2009 - Saturday
Gaming: Photocopyingu photocopyingu, la la la!
Silly Computer Games: My first D&D Tiny Adventures
character retired and passed on the holy avenger she found to an
up-and-coming young paladin.
Cats:
Twelve very cute paws!
Writing: FAIL.
Make a comment!
13 February 2009 - Friday
Work: FAIL on new applications, no feedback on old
applications.
Random Encounters: Ayse and Marith lured me to the
coffeeshop, where I drank no coffee, but chatted extensively. It was
almost like having a life!
Visual Entertainments: The next disc that Greencine
sent me is severely borked, so instead I finally watched the last disc
of Sol Bianca. It makes me sad when people try to write SF
without being able to do simple arithmetic.
Silly Computer Games: Blargh.
Cats:
Wow, all three cats were sitting together on the bed this morning! (Only
Aspen and Marmalade were actually touching, but still!) When I get a
job, I must get some sort of camera thing, so I can fill up Facebook
with cute cat pictures.
Writing: FAIL.
Make a comment!
12 February 2009 - Thursday
Work: Summary of the interview with the guy at
Facebook:
Q: UR SYSADMIN SKILLZ, SHOW THEM TO ME
A: I R LEET SYSADMIN
Q: O RLY?
A: YA RLY
Q: KTHXBYE
Since it didn't end with "NO WAI", I will tentatively declare
victory.
Secrets I'm Not Sharing With You: Neener neener!
Gaming: Looks like I don't actually need to prepare
for random extra D&D tomorrow. I better prepare for regular D&D on
Sunday.
Food: Sushi at the place on Shoreline! (It has a
real name, but I don't remember it. It's in the strip mall with the
Safeway.) It was pretty good, but the sushi units were very large. Ayse
says this is because it is Korean sushi rather than Japanese sushi.
I didn't know Koreans had sushi, but given the other cultural similarities
between Korea and Japan, I'm not surprised.
Visual Entertainments: Second disc of Burst
Angel, which was kind of weird. But it's hard to go wrong with
<rot13>tvnag zrpunavpny pebjf gung yvir ba uhzna ylzcu</rot13>.
Silly Computer Games: Yep.
Cats:
I brought the cats a left-over hamachi, but they did not find it even
slightly appetizing. Huh.
Writing: FAIL.
Make a comment!
11 February 2009 - Wednesday
Work: FAIL.
Visual Entertainments: Ken escaped the dread anime
by showing us The Jazz Singer. Although clearly a product
of its time, it was not as horrible as we had been prepared for: the
blackface scene was not made anything of, and the potential for huge
anti-Semitism was not realized.
Silly Computer Games: Er, yah.
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Writing: FAIL.
Make a comment!
10 February 2009 - Tuesday
Work: FAIL.
Visual Entertainments:
- Rose of Versailles 23-24: Counting down to the
Revolution!
- Kaleido Star II 8: Yay Layla-san!
- Black Lagoon 4-5: Enemies everyone can approve of
shooting!
- Bleach 112: That wasn't very good exposition, but at
least they had a metaphorical monkey.
Silly Computer Games: Blargh.
Cats:
The cats don't seem very pleased with the organic crunchyfood I brought
them from Trader Joe's, so I gave them an extra ration of gooshyfood and
will get the regular crunchyfood tomorrow.
Writing: FAIL.
Make a comment!
9 February 2009 - Monday
Work: The phone interview with the person from the
Portland company was short and not very intense and I sounded like an
idiot. An idiot with a cold.
Allegedly they will let me know how stupid they think I am by
Thursday.
Visual Entertainments: First disc of Burst
Angel, again, because I am giving the anime a second chance after
liking the manga. The plot is about as perforated as I recall.
Silly Computer Games: Blargh!
Cats:
Twelve adorable paws!
Writing: Check, somehow.
Make a comment!
8 February 2009 - Sunday
Gaming: No fights in this Thrace session, but we got
someone else to do the hard fight for us, and made most of a plan for
the thing we have to do in exchange. Also, I told the GM what my
character's personal quest is.
Silly Computer Games: Lots.
Cats:
Just the right number!
Writing: None at all.
Make a comment!
7 February 2009 - Saturday
Gaming: If I were really smart enough to be a game
designer, I would think of things like these.
Visual Entertainments: Finished Mythical
Detective Loki Ragnarok! The last two episodes suddenly veered
off into a completely different tone, but that's okay.
Silly Computer Games: Facebook is making me play Dungeons and Dragons Tiny
Adventures. I have no choice, I tell you!
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Writing: FAIL.
Make a comment!
6 February 2009 - Friday
Work: I have phone interviews on Monday and Thursday
of next week.
Modern Medicine: My eyestalks are apparently all
still where they should be. However, they had to be dilated for
examination, which made doing things that involve vision problematic for
much of the afternoon.
Visual Entertainments: While waiting for my eyes to
become able to focus on nearby things (like books), I watched the
penultimate disc of Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok. Yep,
that's a death spiral!
In the evening, Marith lured me to see Coraline. It was
pretty swell! And creepy! I remain artistically unimpressed by 3D
movies, though.
Silly Computer Games: Blargh.
Cats:
Twelve fliffy paws!
Writing: FAIL.
Make a comment!
5 February 2009 - Thursday
Work: Facebook phone scream: check! And apparently I
was not obviously an imbecile, as they want to have someone else phone
me next Tuesday Thursday.
Also, Rentrak (the Portland company) want to phone me on Monday.
Visual Entertainments: Antepenultimate disc of
Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok. Looks like the death
spiral is coming up.
Silly Computer Games: Yep.
Cats:
Yay kitties!
Writing: FAIL.
Make a comment!
4 February 2009 - Wednesday
Work: The Facebook person who was supposed to phone
scream me was eaten by meetings, so it's been rescheduled for tomorrow
afternoon.
Gaming: Arguably it would have been better if Ayse
and Ken had thrown me out for having germs, because then my character
would have kept her mouth shut, but oh well. No one we actually cared
about got murdered by the crazy paranoid elven nobles, and we might get
to escape from the city back into the monster-infested wilderness.
Silly Computer Games: Too much.
Cats:
Not only are these cats multi-pawular, they have very high splendo
ratings!
Writing: FAIL.
Make a comment!
3 February 2009 - Tuesday
Work: FAIL. Ow, my lungs.
Visual Entertainments:
- The Rose of Versailles 22: Apparently this doom is real and
historical!
- Kaleido Star II 6-7: It is great to see Sora put in the
position she has put so many in before, but I think their subtext is
surfacing.
- Black Lagoon 3: Even Marith likes it! She agrees that
as two-gun-toting short-shorts-wearing action babes go, Revy is much
MUCH cooler than say Lara Croft.
- Bleach 110-111: The stuffed animals from the Bounto arc have
not been disposed of, which is sad. But there is definitely Plot, which
excites Speculation.
Food: Am I losing my taste for In'n'Out, or am I
just sick?
Silly Computer Games: Hardly at all!
Cats:
Twelve adorable paws!
Writing: FAIL. Ow, my lungs.
Make a comment!
2 February 2009 - Monday
HAPPY HAPPY HAROLD-DAY!! (observed, part
2/12)
Work: FAIL. Ow, my brain.
Gaming: Ken ran a very silly D&D4 game for Harold,
with Ayse, Dave, Marith, and I as additional dungeon-crawlers. The
characters I made up were kind of lame, but I think they were all about
equally lame, so it was fair. The cheat sheets I made for each character
ended up full of bugs, but apparently the idea was appreciated, which
was good. The skill challenges were silly, the NPCs were silly, it was
all silly. The solo end boss almost crushed us all, but Harold's warlock
foiled it by dumping the keg of Evil Beer into the magic pool. Yay!
Apparently if I were smarter, my cleric would have been more
effective, although having both of my encounter powers be attacks vs
Will would have been pretty doomed no matter what. Ah well.
Food: Harold's Chris fed us noodle foods without
going insane from hostess complusion, so really everybody won!
Silly Computer Games: Not too much, really. Also I
think not having Angband always running so I can switch to it with just
a mouse fling is better for my arm.
Cats:
Twelve paws that are very helpful, especially when I'm trying to sleep!
Writing: FAIL. Ow, my brain.
Make a comment!
1 February 2009 - Sunday
Gaming: The kobold ninjas were not as terrifying as
they should have been. Serves me right for drawing the battle map so the
PCs all started off with their backs to the wall. On the other hand, I
now have several ideas for terrible things to do to them next session.
A party that's half level 3 and half level 4 is like a party that's
level 7, right?
Visual Entertainments: 4th disc of Mythical
Detective Loki Ragnarok. Looks bad for the good guys!
Silly Computer Games: Not too much!
Cats:
Twelve fuzzy paws!
Writing: FAIL.
true terror by Graydon (Tue Feb 3 10:43:56 2009)
derives from collective action.
Most D&D monsters have co-operation and cohesion issues as a sort of cognitive DM default. Take that away, and you'll have to develop a certain sense for how likely the monsters are to take prisoners versus eat the fallen, but it will certainly make your players think about what they are doing.
Co-operation means they don't gang up beyond very narrow kin-selection sorts of groups; cohesion means they have terrible problems with concentration of force. Players do well because they dump the whole offensive output of the group on single targets. Monsters can and should do the same thing.
I take the perhaps heterodox view that after any number of generations of adventurers greater than say five, the monsters are subject to really major selection pressure to actually try their best to kill player characters in as sneaky and indirect way as they can possibly achieve. This should show in their behavior.
Some perennial favorites of mine include:
Numerous goblinoids with atl-atls, darts (sometimes poisoned darts), and the good sense to throw at the casters first. (Sorceror first, sort of thing, but they have an NCO giving target direction. Fourth level sorcerors taking 16 dart attempts/round tend to become distracted.) They're behind a kneeling line of better armored types with big shields and spears, braced to receive a charge; once someone tries to charge, they find out that they're actually bait for the pit trap the heavies are sheltering behind. (Ideally, two pit traps, just in case someone toughs there way out of the first one.)
Endless variants on this are possible; the principle is that the monsters want to funnel the party into disadvantageous terrain while fighting from prepared positions.
Poison gas traps; sounds really awful, but can be done with good old carbon monoxide and a low spot in a basement, tunnels, etc. Can also be done with a brazier and a well-curtained room. Under no circumstances neglect the awful, awful things that can be done by trapping the chamber pot, outhouse, etc.
Ninja should be stacking distractions and disadvantages; prepared ground, plus things like mild (makes you loopy, gives you -5 to hit) poison on the poison darts, smoke, and attacking from all sides, so the party doesn't have an axis along which to concentrate force. Prepared ground is things like tripping and entangling traps in nasty terrain; heavies trying to function waist deep in swamp or sewage (slows you down, slippery, falling is bad, can't see your feet, and it makes your wounds more dangerous) can be at a serious disadvantage, especially if the ground has been prepared with sharpened stakes, caltrops, etc.
Ninja should never concentrate, but instead move away from the PC's attempts to concentrate force and attempt to lead them through more prepared ground and over terrain in which the ninja have mobility advantages, either from classic things like roof-running or because the PCs don't know the pre-placed ropes are there.
Truly able ninja will do this so that the PCs follow them into an ambush by other, terrain specific forces; lizard men in the swamp, etc. (Doesn't your adventuring party deserve to meet some Erfworld crap golems? I thought so!)
Decoys are a good way to absorb spells; I had some orc types get amazing use out of a puppet-balrog (think Sweetums the Muppet, a brazier with smokey stuff on it, and some low-level illusions) as a spell magnet, once upon a time.
Re: true terror by Trip (Sat Feb 7 19:21:31 2009)
Well, yes. These were not really top-shelf ninja, partly for in-character reasons ("You may have ze chicken.") and partly because it's not that serious of a game. Also, they were attacking the PCs in their boarding house in the middle of a city, rather than defending their well-trapped lair.
Possibly I need to grit my mouthparts and be meaner to the PCs. I don't think any of them even went to zero hit points in that fight.
It's all selection pressure, really by Graydon (Mon Feb 9 16:20:57 2009)
I don't think it's meanness, so much as it's selection pressure. Surviving monsters, ninja, etc. are that way because they assume that anyone they take on is a total rabid bad ass and then plan and act accordingly. (How well they do that of course varies a great deal. Not all opponents/antagonists are competent. They might, for instance, make the yokel mistake, or be highly optimized for the wrong threat; totally fire proof but unable to deal with effective sneaking, for example. Or they might run away when they don't need to and be embarrassed later....)
Now, I admit there's the general class of "bar fight" where you're going a couple rounds with the baker's apprentices, but it's probably not the first time those apprentices have done this, either.
My view is quite possibly biased; the longest, and probably most successful, game I ran was a Rune Quest one, back in Kingston; the players were a varied lot, and not particularly good role players for the most part. They were also rather highly digressive, unfocused, and amiable about character goals; no one was hell-bent on building a castle, becoming high priest, or anything like that. No one had political goals for their characters. (Which became a terrible problem, but never mind.)
Fights, though; this babbling, argumentative, nit-picking bunch went click and there was an efficient, co-operative, collectivist killing machine.
This was good -- it drove the plot, the players enjoyed winning, it gave some focus to the sessions -- and bad -- when six or more players can and will wring the full combat potential out of their characters, an orc(lunar empire trooper, sophont racoon, demonic cow...) either way is the difference between an unappealing walk over and TPK, which is hard on the GM; the surrounding politics didn't conclude these people were crazy in anything like enough time -- but I think it was more good than bad. Players enjoy winning much more when it feels like they really had to work for it.
The two core things that go into that are, I think, a flinty willingness to kill PCs on the part of the GM, causing players to believe they must honor in-game threats to their characters, and hitting the players with things they do not recognize, which makes them think and combines with believing they can die to make them focused and creative in their turn.
But this could just be my own particular biases; if you've got players who really like grand-plot swashbuckling with little actual fighting, they won't be happy.
Question of genre, really, and whether any genre collision is making the story stronger or causing it to leak oomph. (Consider trying to genre-combine the A-team and Megatokyo.)
But your descriptions involved a lot of combat, so I thought I'd stick my oar in, in favour of "monsters want to win".
some specifics about boarding houses... by Graydon (Mon Feb 9 16:38:59 2009)
Oh, and because I'm incurably discursive -- why are the ninjas doing something like going into the boarding house? That's not minimizing ninja-risk!
Risk-averse ninja bribe the kitchen staff to poison the folks in rooms 11, 9, and 23, set the building on fire (or create that impression with smoke or gas generators) and kill the people who flee, snipe with heavy crossbows at unexpected times, or stage an attack that's just convincing enough to have them followed when they flee through the pre-arranged trap, but should generally want to stick to simple and low-risk.
Which directly attacking people almost never is; you want to, at worst, knife them in their sleep.
Do the ninja suffer from an honour code? A way things are done or not done? Does it apply to out-of-town strangers?
Re: some specifics about boarding houses... by Trip (Mon Feb 9 17:07:17 2009)
Kobold ninjas in a non-kobold town, so they couldn't easily suborn the locals, or even shadow the PCs down the streets. They did try to knife the PCs in their sleep, but blew the stealth roll. If they had gotten a surprise round, or even all been inside when the PCs woke up, things might have gone differently.
poor abused goblinoids by Graydon (Tue Feb 10 10:00:16 2009)
Ah, ok; hostile territory for the opponents, greatly limiting freedom of action.
Which makes me wonder why they didn't light the inn on fire, but that could just be my native cheerful fondness for Heroic Age german tactics, and the assumption of decent ranged weapons. (Seed the exits with poisoned caltrops and then light the inn on fire, that's the ticket...)
Re: poor abused reptiloids by Trip (Tue Feb 10 15:44:14 2009)
Mostly because I didn't think of it in time, although given that a high percentage of the population of this particular city is dragonborn, most buildings are probably stone or brick anyway.
Make a comment!
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