This Friday, I was hoping to take my friends through a rather nifty (if I do say so myself) adventure set in the dark heart of Farika, hunting a tiger. I’d worked out a bunch of entertaining encounters, thrown in some interesting NPC interaction, and basically based the entire thing around Nathaniel’s character. Well, not actually: Nate mainly would provide a great deal of the original hooks, after that there’d be something for everyone.
When Nathaniel then indicated he wouldn’t be able to make the session for some reason I still don’t pretend to understand, my heart plummetted. Urgh. Although I could still run the adventure, it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun for me. I really wanted everyone there for it.
Martin then posted early on Friday morning that he had a cold, and that we’d be braving a plague pit to come. I had, by this stage, decided to run an interim adventure to tide everything over until Nate could return. However, with Martin’s attention likely to be distracted by bouts of coughing and sneezing, it seemed prudent to cancel the session outright.
In two weeks, then, we’ll play the adventure I’d originally planned, and I hope it’s as entertaining for my friends as it is in my mind!
Sunday’s roleplaying, with any luck, will continue as planned. Greg’s cleric along with Josh’s new character (a Goliath Fighter, as I recall) will join the rest of the group in a town besieged by undead. I should really pull out Expedition to Castle Ravenloft for some ideas on how to handle it. I know some of the players don’t want to stay there any longer than they have to, and they can try to leave if they like…
This is an interim adventure to get everyone up to Paragon level before we start playing the "P" series of Wizards adventures. I’m very fond of P1 from my reading of it; I hope it’s fun to play. That should be in a couple of week’s time. E1 has just arrived, and that looks really fun!
(For some reason, the recent Wizards adventures have arrived about 6 weeks late here in Australia. Does anyone know why?)
I went to see Terminator Salvation on Friday afternoon. Hmm. It’s not a great movie. Indeed, it’s not a very good one. I enjoyed Terminator 3 a lot more than this film, despite all the bad press T3 got. T4 has some of the most clumsy and awful plotting you can imagine. When you have a scene where the villain explains the plot, you’re always in trouble with a film (unless it’s a Bond film – that goes with the territory). When the villain is a computer with no possible reason to actually tell anyone the plot… arrgghh!!!
The trouble is that the film actually isn’t that bad. It just overcomplicates the plot by making it all this giant plan. Remove the plan and everything works so much better! Skynet knows things that it really doesn’t need to know. Even if you accept that it knows who some people are and their future importance, the way it then handles everything is dumb beyond description.
Making the film worse is that most of the roles in it are terribly underwritten and with little depth. You can see the actors trying their best, but mostly it’s just an excuse to get to the next action sequence. However, action sequences work best when they have a point; When you care about the characters involved or their goals. "Survive the next action sequence" doesn’t quite do it for me.
The score for the film is by Danny Elfman, who has written some brilliant scores in his time – possibly none better than those for the two Tim Burton "Batman" films. Unfortunately, it’s completely undistinguished and unforgettable. It would have been far better if he’d used more elements from T2, which has one of the great film scores of all time, but no, nothing like that. Just bland, boring music.
After the disappointment of Terminator Salvation, it was off to Good Games for replacement gaming, in this case a four-player booster draft. The other players were Craig Kay (playing his first game of Magic in many, many years), Tim and Anthony. Tim and Anthony are relatively new players and Craig wasn’t familiar with the drafting patterns of the new set yet (he eventually ended up with a 2-colour deck; I think a 3-colour would have worked better). Still, the draft was fun.
My own deck I was initially rather pleased with, but, looking back at it, I’m really glad I didn’t have better competition. It was terribly slow and had tremendous problems in some games with getting out essential blue mana. There were some nice cards in it, though.
Possibly the card I overrated the most was this one: Kederekt Leviathan. I managed to completely miss the "non-land" part when I was reading it for the first time. It’s still not a bad card, but it never came in helpful in the draft. Thankfully, I didn’t draw it that often.
More fun, and perhaps the best revision-in-the-spirit-of-the-original-card was this one, Path to Exile. The original card was Swords to Plowshares; Path actually implements the name "Swords to Plowshares" better than the original! Good fun.
Good things about my deck was the card-drawing – there were two cards that could achieve it – and the special lands. It was still too slow, although inexorable if allowed time to develop. My opponents allowed me the time. The one time Craig could have taken the game, he then drew 10(!) lands in a row, and I came back with the win. Overall, the results were 2-0, 2-0 and (surprise, surprise) 2-0.
The decklist, just in case I ever want to refer to it again:
WHITE: Aven Trailblazer, Guardian of Akrasa, Path to Exile, Sanctum Gargoyle
BLUE: Kederekt Leviathan
GREEN: Drumhunter, Filigree Fracture, Jungle Weaver, Topan Ascetic, Tukatongue Thallid
GOLD: Aven Mimeomancer, Bant Sojourners, Crystallization, Ethercaste Knight, Marisa’s Twinclaws, Rhox Bodyguard, Sigiled Behomoth, Skyward Eye Prophets, Stormcaller’s Boon, Stun Sniper, Vagrant Plowbeasts, 2 Wildfire Borderposts, Winged Coatl
LAND: Ancient Ziggurat, Esper Panorama, Jungle Shrine, Rapture Shrine, 3 Islands, 4 Plains, 4 Forests
Hi Merric!
At least your D&D books just arrives six weeks late… haven’t seen the most recent releases here for the past three or four months. Worse, when I asked the gaming shop about it, he complained about his suppliers in Australia…
P.s. Also thought that converting Expedition to Castle Ravenloft would make a great game. The first zombie-horde encounter is perfect for minions. (Alternately, you could try this one http://robin-d-laws.livejournal.com/342751.html)
Go figure!
What’s really odd is that the rest of the books turn up on the release date. It’s just the adventures that are late!