Actually, Scrap That

A few months ago I posted a fair amount about a new take on dark elves (which I called ælves). I've now decided to abandon that - I don't think there's anything much wrong with it, but I also don't think it matters. Better just for those evil elves to simply be... evil elves.

In terms of game mechanics, my view is a fairly simple one: when creating an elven character, simply use any subrace that seems appropriate. (I do wish the mechanics of drow were rather different - but I expect that's coming in 5.5e anyway, so no matter.)

My Character Sheet in Review

About two years ago I put together a new character sheet for my D&D games. It has now seen use in two campaigns. I have some thoughts:

Broadly speaking, the character sheet does the job I want from it, and I do think it's an improvement over the official sheet.

The auto-calculations seem to be working well. I have found, and fixed, a few errors. But only a few.

The split spell sheet works really well. I still feel that there's a problem with Clerics, Druids, and Paladins having too many spells, but that's a problem with the game, not the sheet. Moving the spellcasting traits onto that third sheet also works well.

What I could do with, however, is a couple of overflow sheets - one for an expanded inventory (notably including more space for magic item descriptions, and one for general notes of various sorts. Putting those together shouldn't be too tough, though the challenge may lie in tying them into an existing sheet mid-campaign.

One thing that really amuses me is that I deliberately removed the box for Inspiration in favour of giving out a token for that purpose at level-up. This works really well in face-to-face games, but is frankly a bit of a disaster when gaming online. Heh.

I should probably get the Starter Set characters changed over to the new character sheets. If I use those again (and I may), they would be better in this format.

Empty Thrones

I've been musing a little on the D&D cosmology, and come to a conclusion: when using the official cosmology (as when running in a published setting), I'm going to take the view that the gods are missing.

Canonically, the Outer Planes contain the kingdoms and dwelling places of the gods. That will still be the case for me: the kingdoms are there, the citadels and fortresses are there, the whole thing is minded by a cadre of divine servitors of various forms...

But the gods are simply absent.

If asked, those divine servitors will be all too happy to explain, but will then promptly change the subject. It won't even be a refusal to answer - they'll pretty much forget the question, and never quite be able to answer it. It will just be one of those mysteries that can't really be grasped.

None of this actually affects much of anything - it will still be possible to interact with avatars, and aspects, and even the idea of gods. But no summoning can actually manifest the actual god, there's no way to approach, or even find, them. They're just... missing.

With regard to Clerics, this gives rise to another slight mystery, since they still get their spells, and they only get them in the name of those gods. This, again, can't be satisfactorily answered, since the spells are actually provided by divine intermediaries... but if any of them decide to stop serving their masters and grant spells in their own name, that's a rebellion that fundamentally alters their nature, and they lose the ability to grant those spells forever.

The End of Falkirk RPG

As I mentioned in my previous post, the Falkirk RPG site is set to shut down imminently. This marks the end of an era, and the demise of my fourth gaming group.

I started the Falkirk RPG Meetup shortly after buying my flat in Falkirk (a mere three years after moving to the town), having become increasingly despondent about the state of my previous gaming group - we had dropped to four members, with a quorum of four, meaning that if any one of us couldn't make it the game didn't happen... and one of the four of us couldn't make it almost every week.

Falkirk RPG was a moderate success at first, with four people attending the first meeting, and then a much bigger success soon thereafter as it started to snowball. At its peak I think it had 40 members and half a dozen active games.

Alas, that peak couldn't last, and with Falkirk RPG the slip started when Brindy moved away. That, coupled with my own move to Livingston, largely signalled the end of my involvement in the group. The remaining games increasingly moved their activity away from the site, and it really became quite moribund.

And then Covid brought the death-knell - the games either shifted entirely online, and so away from the site, or they went onto a so-far permanent hiatus. And that was that.

Still, I always prefer to remember the good times, and for Falkirk RPG they were many - I ran two memorable D&D campaigns, "On Tracks of Lightning" and "The Eberron Code", a Star Wars d20 campaign of some note, "Imperial Fist", and many "Firefly: the Lost Episodes" games. Falkirk RPG was also the host to my Christmas Games, of which "Memoirs of a Companion" was the best. And finally, two of my most enjoyable one-shots: the World of Darkness game "Ultraviolet: Code-500" and the Star Wars "Mirror Universe" game.

Good times, and I'm sad to see it end. But it is time, alas.

A Little Housekeeping

In the near future, if it hasn't happened already, the Falkirk RPG site is going to be shut down. As a side-effect of that change, I'm also going to remove the custom domain from this blog. The transition should be mostly seamless, with only the address changing.

The new address of this blog will therefore be: stephensimaginarium.blogspot.com

The new address should be active immediately, and for now will redirect users to the old. I'm not sure how long the old address will remain active (no later than the end of this month), but I'd encourage anyone affected to update relevant links as soon as possible.

The Quest For Memory at Year's End 2021

Last night we had out final session of "The Quest for Memory" for the year. It went well - after so long away it took a bit of time to get back into it, but by the end things were running smoothly.

This is a campaign that has had its difficulties over the year. As lockdown eased and various things resumed, it became increasingly difficult to get the party together, and that really started to take a toll both on the quality of the campaign and also the enthusiasm to continue. It also didn't help that the party got stuck in the 'crucible' for months on end, even after that section of the game had done its job.

It will be interesting to see whether, and for how long, this campaign continues in the new year. My fear is that it will fizzle out over the next few months, but we'll see - perhaps 2022 will see a new lease of life for it?

The Mists of Lamordia at Year's End 2021

Earlier we had our final session of "The Mists of Lamordia" for the year. This saw the party complete their confrontation with the Dark Powers in the Amber Temple, ending the Curse of the Neverborn, and thus completing the second act of the campaign. All of which is great.

The campaign continues to be run online, and continues to work pretty well, which is nice.

I expect the campaign to complete by Easter - in fact, for various reasons I have decided to set myself a hard stop for the campaign by the end of April. My expectation is that that will be very doable - there are three mini-adventures remaining in the campaign before it comes to its end.

And that is essentially all there is to say about that - it has been a successful year for the campaign, and it looks to be coming to a successful end.