Meditations of a Cossack

Writer, Traveler, Musician, Nerd and Lover of Sundries

[herrblumen]

Loser Vampire

Radu looked through the window again. It was almost dusk. He stood and put on his shades. The whole thing about sunlight was a superstition. He was fine with sunlight.

When sober.

Not alcohol, of course, but that heinous issue of old blood bags that had already reached that state of beginning to separate. Radu was able to support his three bags day habit by working for the local Red Cross affiliate in Targu Mures. The job as disposal officer of all tested and unacceptable blood had been years in the making. Not that this mattered to the undead, time was a matter of mortal concern.

Rounding Piata Trandafirilor from the direction of the Orthodox cathedral, he never failed to inverse cross himself, he stared at the ghastly monstrosity of the casino which stood opposed on an infinite number of levels from the Palace of Culture. He was headed to meet Akos, a Szekler youth of prodigious computer skills. The jaunt from his studio apartment was a mere ten minute walk.

"Szia, Akos!" Radu began speaking in Hungarian. "I hope you were able to find the... Uh, the missing bags in the logs?"

"You know I did. You're good," Akos mumbled into his fist as he struck up a Pall Mall. He held out the pack, but Radu demurred. "Can you not smoke? Is that a thing?"

"Oh, I can, sure. I just can't afford the habit," he said shrugging in his coat against the late autumnal evening breezes.

"Why do you have to hide what you're doing? I mean, like, if you got caught, just bite them, right?" Akos gestured as if dismissing the humanity of someone to the likes of a vampire was of no lasting consequence. It mirrored how aggressively he smoked.

Radu eyed the rapidly glowing embers and winced. "No, it isn't that easy. Beside that, it would create competition." He coughed spasmatically. "Gah, you'd think I'd be able to get even a couple good bags."

"Good ones? You said the HIV ones were fine. Did I miss something?"

"No, they're... Ok. It is like eating something with MSG, I think. It is too intense. Too addictive," Radu explained into the now biting wind. "Don't even ask about hepatitis. Baszd meg! Awful taste. Almost enough to make me try a different approach."

The thoroughfare of the Transylvanian city's major artery of trade made Radu wince. So much blood here and he couldn't do like in movies and such. People reported his kind to the police these days. They got laughed off, but they were reported enough to make it not worth the effort.

"So, does it help you get the, uh, the ladies? They're crazy for vampire stuff, if you believe the hype in all the movies and crap," Akos queried.

"Nah. I mean, at first they think it is a joke. They get back to my place, if I'm that lucky, and they just 'nope' on out of there," Radu said as he watched Akos light up another. He waved to take one. They silently took first drags while staring into the foot traffic. "Haven't been that lucky since the 80's."

"Aren't there lady vampires?"

Shrug. Pull at his jacket. "Eh, well..." Radu mumbled as he tried to keep his eyes from watering at the lungful of tar and other toxins. "Gah, they've really kicked it up a notch with these," he said trying to change the subject.

"Whatever. I'm off. See you next week?"

"Sure," Radu said while slipping Akos a few hundred Euro. "Yeah, same thing. Rinse, repeat"

[ladytabletop]

Worldbuilding June 18: A Complete List

Hey everybody! Thanks for participating in Worldbuildiing June. Here’s a complete list of the prompts published on my blog this year!

Day 1: Sensory Check-In Day 2: Personal Space Day 3: Kid Stuff Day 4: The Holy Grail Day 5: Just the Basics Day 6: Shipping Trash Day 7: Bill of Sale Day 8: Power UP! Day 9: #blessed Day 10: Cotton Candy Day Day 11: *@#! Day 12: Pest Control Day 13: Weeds (Yes, Plural) Day 14: Fine Dining Day 15: Legalities Day 16: Magicians Day 17: What’s Up, Doc? Day 18: Textiles Day 19: World-Shaping Conflicts Day 20: Arm Up! Day 21: Vacation Day 22: Bringing Home the Bacon Day 23: Striking Day 24: Guinness, or Someone Like Him Day 25: Lists Day 26: Pop Stars Day 27: Have Horse, Will Travel Day 28: VIPs Day 29: Dear John Day 30: Worst Case Scenarios

[littlefearsdoodles]

“Tell me about the body,” asked Lily.

“Well ma’am,” said Sally, “she appears to have received a dozen different injuries.”

“Such as?” asked Lily.

“Well to start with if you look here,” said Sally, “her eyes have been damaged by a blunt object. We suspect this was caused by this big book, found by her feet.”

Lily picked up the text, Chemistry For Beginners. “So, she was blinded by science.”

Original photo by Kiwihug on Unsplash

LittleFears | Books | Threadless | Patreon | Skillshare

[herrblumen]

Measurements are in meters. This is an adaptation of Heinfels in Sillian, Austria. One of the coolest little towns I've been to. I've run a "dungeon" crawl in this before, but wanted to make this more impressive, however. This was my first huge project on Adobe Sketch. Took about a week to do. Next one will be Spis Castle, Slovakia.

[herrblumen]

So. Rough work on the world map for my 5E campaign. I'm working on the plate tectonics which will inform the presence of mountain ranges, which in turn given me a path forward on volcanism and hydrology. After this, I'll turn to oceanographic questions: currents, trade winds, weather patterns locally & globally. By looking at these elements, I can also posit migrations of species, races and whole populations. It also can help me with the idea of how to force interactions: Who can travel the open seas? What is accessible? What technologies are required to get everywhere? What ecological regions are sensitive and which are fierce? This whole exercise ultimately leads to the soft sciences of anthropology, archeology, history, linguistics and sociology.

[herrblumen]

Every night at 7:20 no matter what... or who... or why... because some things are important. #gnuterrypratchett #wheresmycow

[herrblumen]

Slavica Publishers

"Come for the linguistics, stay for the prices so low you'll end up getting 5 books"- Slavica Publishers That really should be their motto. And let me lead off with this: these books are inexpensive, not cheap. The latter implies a diminishing returns in terms of quality and that simply isn't the case with these guys. I was made aware of this arm of the University of Indiana by one of my two favorite professors at the University of South Carolina, Dr Curtis Ford. Little did I know as an impressionable 22 year old that he was the kindest, most soft-spoken pushers that the game ever saw. Like any of those kind he tempted with some version of the phrase, "First one's cool, kid. Just borrow this book. If you like it, I know a guy..." I suddenly had an addiction. These books were accessible, well written and left one saying, "Actually, at this price, I need both books on Serbian morphology." It is a hard habit to break. I particularly like these books: Introduction to the Phonological History of the Slavic Languages and the Beginning Slovak textbook. In the Phonological History, the word-nerd's most passionate desires for charts, maps and details of language change are met. Terence R. Carlton leads one down every single rabbit trail that is possible. Lusatian? Check? Sorbian? Uh-huh. Wendish? Both sorts. Slovene? In detail of the many variants. In short, the microscopic analysis is superb. The categorization and structure to the work is easy to navigate. It makes the reader want to explore each language deeper. Alas, it is out of print, but there are copies to be had second hand. I got mine on Amazon. Beginning Slovak is a textbook that takes the student through the language at a reasonable clip. The two authors try to straddle the difficult line of pragmatic spoken Slovak and the bookish version of Bratislava. The lessons incorporate the right amount of vocabulary to the depth of grammar - it always presents more than just one element, too. This is important, to my mind. The student should not be so laser focused on verbs that nouns are whitewashed or any other example. This balance is found throughout. There are many other books which are on my personal "need it" list, but the real showstopper is the fact that this caliber of education is freely available and at such a cost savings. Enjoy the link below and watch out because you, too, will become addicted. https://slavica.indiana.edu/

[herrblumen]

Gloria by Okean El'zy - the best album ever

I've been a big fan of this Ukrainian band Okean El'zy for over a decade and a half. They were the first band that made me want to learn the Ukrainian language. Beyond that, everyone has that moment when you hear an album, song of even a riff that stuns you and you always try to recreate that sense of awe with each listen. The album Gloria is this for me. Gloria was an album that effectively hit the reset button for the band. The group lost their guitarist Pavlo Hudimov (who was creative as a rhythm guitarist, but no Jimi). Their keyboard/piano player got replaced with a cool Serbian guy. The focus changed from a middle of the road, radio-friendly focus that saw them nail several hits, but seemed to be less artistic and more playing for the bleacher seats. Gloria scrapped that mentality and from the a cappella intro to "The First Song" blazed a new direction into a bolder, more edgy soundscape. The album bounces through a steady onslaught of hits which charted all over the former Eastern Bloc states. There are cheesy love songs, complex songs which deal with lost and a sense that each song builds upon the last in a very purposed, almost narrative way. In terms of the sound, gone are effects laden attempts at the 90's British rock scene. Petro brought a vibe of blues that had been lacking and really becomes apparent from the very offset. He redefined the whole rhythm section to display the best which the others could bring. In the song "Like the Last Day," the true value of a savant guitarist shows through: a searing solo which rattles into a dissonant wail which transitions into the final, pleading piano ballad of "Don't Ask," which is one of the most tender lyrics ever penned. Gloria hit me while studying at the University of South Carolina. I had just begun a radio show on WUSC which showcased bands of Central and Eastern Europe. It was a fun gig and even worked into my senior paper for my Russian degree. Nevertheless, I remember the cold walk up the hill to campus about a mile from my parking space behind the old colosseum. I stood stock still and started the album over at a stop light. It was there at the corner of Greene and Assembly Streets that I found the album which still seems to run on repeat in the radio of my mind to this day. I have translated the songs, put them on mix CD's at the very end of those pre-iPod days where one still bought blank discs by the 100 singles and used them cathartically after my divorce. This album redefined my sense of musicality at that very impressionable age of 23. I can still hum that intro with them like it was 2005. "Your life Has dropped by to visit me Like unexpected snow Which came in the autumn Only to stay until spring..."

[herrblumen]

How Much Prep is Too Much?

I'm a planner by nature. I try to stay ahead of the curve with my campaigns and don't like to let the story or the world get too far ahead of me to the point where I feel like I'm letting my players down. I give them a sandbox, generally, but have a few threads of story that are overarching for the narrative purposes. The question, then, is this: how much do I need to have ready at any given time? No, you'll never have enough prepared NPC's for that one player to annoy. The 6th blacksmith in the medium sized city is not going to be fully fleshed out. The gossip of every townsperson isn't already prepared, but who cares? The players, generallly won't notice if you do a few things in advance: 1. Get a feel for 3 to 5 goals for each city/town/village - every point of civilization has only a few major real issues and doesn't need to be scaled up based on a perceived population bump (don't even get me started with populations of actual medieval cities vs what one encounters in fantasy worlds). No, even today, big cities may seem to have more issues, but if you boil it down to just a few, normally those issues are the source of small problems. For example: Szekesfehervar is a small town with the problems of corruption, a blight on the wheat crop and incursions by drifting, semi-nomadic people who live on the edge of town. We can allow the townsfolk to flesh all these out by taking slices of these 3 issues and tying them together from different points of view to give a feeling of the town. How does corruption on the part of the local leader coincide with the other 2 issues? Is he giving preferential treatment to some so that it suppresses the prices of the wheat for some, but marks it up for others? Does this increase theft? What role do those outsiders take in relation to the oppressed in the town? These questions don't need fleshed out answers. They need to be in your mind and maybe written out. Allow the NPC's that are approached posit the questions to the players. Give the players the chance to debate and solve these issues themselves. 2. Create a 2 column sheet for NPC profiles: In one column, list names with races skipping 2 or 3 lines between each. This allows for the GM to add notes about the interactions and details which are generated based on column 2. In the second, list many attributes, titles or professions. Strike through these second ones as you use them up, or, if you want to use some multiple times, put check marks as they are used. By allowing for these items to be combined from the second column into the first, you can create complex people on the fly without having to have extensive lists for each possible NPC the players might happen to meet. It also allows for you to keep track of any rumors/quests/ideas which you'll later want to remember when the players inevitably say, "We go back to the Lucky Boar to ask that dude, what's-his-name, if he ever found that mongoose his niece lost in the woods." I've been blindsided by throw-away NPC's too often to not have at least something about 'Aethelred - Half-Elf - Moron - Niece with mongoose issue in woods' 3. Bring the books you are reading into your world. Everyone should be reading something: literature, magazines on your trade, a regular journal on some science thing you like ("How Sleep Affects the Elderly" can even have its uses) or other real world printed or posted work. I say this to mean that while television is good and entertaining, it isn't going to get into the deeper part of our consciousness the way that reading does. It also needs to be noted that actual, thought out and reviewed works will be more helpful & effective than, well, even this blog. The time tested review process causes written work to be more durable and engaging since it had to be proven to convey a message before publication. It also is edited. That's important, since it means someone has already deemed it credible. When I am at a loss for how to respond to a situation, but it triggers a memory of a chapter in, perhaps, Foundation by Asimov. I throw in a Seldon crisis. A player is asserting that this or that aspect of a culture is crazy, I discuss how the ruling class is a nomadic people who let the locals do their own thing as long as they pay tribute and slaves are offered up (in my mind, it is referencing the Golden Horde of late medieval, pre-Muscovy Russia). When we plan, we need to be conscious of what any role playing game ultimately is: a means to collectively have fun. If the whole goal is to use narrative causality force the players into a predetermined sequence of events, then what value do their actions have? On a similar note, if the whole sandbox thing is so critical that it means all the work put into the world is negated, you will not have fun as a GM.

[herrblumen]

Thoreau or Turgenev: The Master of The Outdoorsman

I’ve enjoyed Walden since encountering it in middle school and it is a compelling treatise on how the Romantic Era (more specifically, the Transcendentalist movement of this era) engrained this sense of wistfulness into the reader’s understanding of the value of both nature and purposeful seclusion. Thoreau gives a gripping reality check to his audience of the 1850’s which goes counter to the Industrial Revolution which is hitting Western Civilization full in the nose. He brings the need to be deliberate in seeing the value of nature into the consciousness of a generation in a way that seeks not necessarily to beat the reader over the head with his convictions, but to show the value of getting back to the fundamentals of existence. This is a reaction to the stressors of his day: the mechanization of all aspects of industry and the deconstruction of what it means to be a human. Thoreau gives the reader a sense of nostalgia for something they could, in theory do, albeit, not with the same carelessness nor freedom that he pursues, perhaps. This is an attempt to become the Everyman in a liberating way. Thoreau wants to lead the reader into a scene where the only emotionally appropriate option is to follow his lead into the wilderness.

Turgenev? Not so much. In his piece Sketches from a Hunter’s Notebook, Turgenev is seeking to show the way that his society already is one with nature and how the gentrified classes have lost sight of this. His work, published in 1852 (2 years before <u>Walden</u>), was a direct rebuttal to how the West had tried to undo the very things that made the Russian unique. His travels in the wilderness are not lush and complex descriptions of how the woods and rivers are manifestly sublime. No, instead he takes that understanding as given. The approach is to weave the people of Russia, the unliberated serfs, a voice and a tone which at once demonstrates the ill-educated nature of the common person and the corruption which education and modern knowledge necessarily forces upon those for whom the Industrial Age is dawning. His epiphanies of transcendence are in seeing the art in another human being in relation to the environment around them.

The differences of these two writers is stark in how, on the one hand, Thoreau is seeking to paint the word pictures of the idyllic Walden Pond to convince his educated, elite readers of the American Northeast to seek out nature because only then can one achieve the unattainable. While, conversely, that sense of perfection in the wide open steppes of Southern and Central Russia is a given and the moment of overcoming the material plane of existence is in seeing the beauty of how the trappings of wealth and power have taken this away from those at the top of the heap.

Where Turgenev surpasses Thoreau is that he is giving value to the labors of men where they work along side the wilderness, but Thoreau is calling for a renunciation of civilization. Turgenev is using the politics of his writing to inform the elite of his nation of the value of the people for their humanity - a notion which neither Russia or the United States fully grapples with until over a decade later. This approach is what is needed whenever one talks about any form of integration of the value of nature with the values of mankind. It is in his seeing the blending of the two that Turgenev surpasses Thoreau as both a transcendenalist and a humanist, thus achieving the ultimate enlightenment of the Romantic Age.

[herrblumen]

How to Pursue Research as a DM

We're comfortable in identifying as nerds now, right? I mean that's the dead ringer description of me and I want to demonstrate my method of researching my world building elements with a few links. Here is a link to an actual archeological paper on the Bohemian medieval villages. It is flush with information about how and why certain types of housing and life were prevalent. It gives a good insight, is only 10 pages and is a legitimate work of research. Archeological reports go such a long way to providing not only the actual information which one seeks, but also a context of why this happened and developed. http://www.ruralia.cz/sites/default/files/doc/pdf/347-356.pdf Here is a paper which looks at the social cues & life in the Low Countries in the late Middle Ages. It is, again, a legitimate source, short and gives not only the what, but the how and why of the research. It is incredibly helpful for a DM since tweeking the why or how of something developed can give insight into how to alter it in our world building endeavors. http://www.ulb.ac.be/philo/urbs/pages/research.pdf In this example, we see reputable journal on archeology discussing market towns in Japan. This one is a little longer, but skimming and titles for sections got me where I wanted to be. This piece gives an insight into what was considered valuable, how this influenced both the architecture, infrastructure and logistics of trade. Knowledge of these minutia do give us a method to consider for how we can create our works and individual civilizations. It also opens eyes onto how interconnected distant civilizations interact. http://www.jjarchaeology.jp/contents/pdf/vol003/3-2_089-116.pdf This short except gives a 3 page view into the medieval climactic optimum and the way it affected that epoch. It gives the details necessary for a deeper study. Again, note that this is a research paper and gives a legitimate source for ideas. http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/shared/articles/medclimopt.pdf Lastly, this is my personal fun set of two world building elements: hydrology & plate-tectonics. In both of these papers, we see the seedlings of how to grow our works from a slip of an idea into a logically constructed world. These two factors of how water alters the face of our worlds and how the fundamental transformation of place via moving continents engages our players indirectly. They get the experience of a world in which a volcano is there for a very, very specific reason and why California is leaving the mainland as its own boat. http://rgn.hr/~bruntom/nids_bruntom/PDF%20Strukturna%20geomorfologija/Pinter%20%26%20Brandon.pdf http://www.tulane.edu/~sanelson/eens1110/pltect.pdf Now, how did I get to these papers and topics? Google, my friends, and just add PDF to the search field. This causes actual research papers to rise to the top. Enjoy!

[herrblumen]

The Pull of Mountain Mama

I was born in Fairmont, West Virginia, on an incredibly cold morning. I'm sure that this really hasn't anything to do with the fact that I love the mountains, but I like to pretend it does. We moved to South Carolina when I was not even yet 2 years old. The coal mines were shutting down and dad found an engineering job down in Columbia. The city currently uses the catchphrase of "Famously Hot" because "Satan's Armpit" won't exactly roll off the tongue. This place has been very good to me. I met my wife here. My kids were all born here. Nevertheless, it isn't my heart's home. I get a thrill driving into the mountains. Fancy Gap always takes my breath away. It feels like I'm going back to the root of it all. In a way, for me it does: my parents both came from West Virginia and that's where my grandparents were for a good portion of my life. Trips going back there held a sense of awe as we would go into the East River Mountain Tunnel. My siblings and I would attempt to hold our breath through it - no mean feat, that. Halfway through I knew I was home. I'd arrived and on the otherside was the Wild, Wonderful West Virginia. I've travelled Europe and the USA and while there are more majestic mountains (Triglav and the Julian Alps in Slovenia come to mind), others have more of a sense of history (the hill castles and fortified villages of Romania and Slovakia) or even the family story of visiting my mother's brothers outside Denver where we got stuck up on a mountain during a sudden blizzard on July 4th on the continental divide - none of them compare to those low mountains of the Appalachains with their deciduous forests all the way about them and the gentle hills they drop onto the Atlantic Plain. This sense of wonder at the mountains has stuck with me into adulthood. Not long ago, I took my sons up to the picturesque town of Hinton, WV, then up to a cabin my maternal grandfather built on his land halfway up a mountain west of Hinton. We could see the New River and the town from up there. The stars were always brilliant like diamonds at night and the creek at the bottom of the "holler" near the road was the perfect place to let the boys splash about. We cooked out under the sky for a few meals and listened to nature as it happened all around us. We saw deer and rabbits. They got to go swim in the New River down in town. They got to ride with the top of the Jeep down as we wound our way out of West Virginia. Deep down, if I'm truly honest... I hope I'm instilling this love for altitude in them, too.

[herrblumen]

Top 5 Books that I Always Want to Reread (and one trilogy)

Invariably, any time books are compared one feels the urge to write a top 5 or 10 or 100 books list. Being a literature aficionado and also having limited time to read what with being a husband, father and dutiful employee, I often don't experiment much with finding new books to read except via our library's Overdrive system (which is fantastic, by the way). When I'm wanting the soul-food equivalent of a book, I turn to just a few individual novels and one trilogy. Don't hate - Cogitate. 1. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams This novel is by far the best of the whole 5 book trilogy and scratches that "taking the mind off the ringer" feeling that some books do so very well. Adams is at once both quirky and insightful. His political analysis, while coy and very comedic, is dead on with the dangers of bureaucracy, democracy and the vileness of the human inertia that drives politicians. The whole series is worth a read, but for the brevity of this first installment, it really does achieve that fundamental satisfaction that very few other books give. 2. War and Peace by Lev Tolstoy This is a bit of a counter to that previous book in that it is very infrequently quirky or comedic. It has those moments throughout in very, very rare but tastefully ridiculous moments (the policeman being tied back to back to a circus bear in the first section is one of the best). No, the gravity of this novel is that Tolstoy finds that kernel of love and the seed of hate in each character and uses both of those elements to transform them over the course of what feels like a few million pages. Pierre/Petya is the Everyman that is so easy to identify with and to be repulsed by all at once. The fates of the nation in a sweeping cabaret are shown in this novel which is justifiably on most "Big Read" or similar lists. 3. Eleanor and the Four Kings by Amy Kelly This is by far my favorite biography. It is a treatise on the role of women in the high medieval ages, but it isn't heavy handed and preaching with each page. Instead, the work goes to show how Eleanor navigated a man's world and used her magnetism to manipulate numerous thrones and nations. Kelly is able to draw the reader into the history without it feeling like a history book like one read back in school. This writing style and approach is what makes it a fresh read each time. 4. The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien This book is my favorite from the most famous of all fantasy writers for the fact that he here took the lid off the machine to show us the engine. This is the ultimate in world-building which every fantasy, sci-fi and speculative fiction author aims to match. Tolkien here allows the reader to dig into a deep, cerebral history book of a world of the mind. He has a cosmology, a mythology, the heroic age detailed and explained. The apocalypse which ushers in the end of an age and the broad-strokes version of what happens in The Lord of the Rings. 5. The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Hasek I've covered this book before, so I won't expound tremendously, but I do want to point out that this book was one of the first to poke fun at and satirize the modern understanding of the war novel. It prods the mind to look at war not with the somber nostalgia of the greatness of a nation's capacity to wage and win war, but at the mundane foolishness that war necessarily creates in the common life of the citizenry. Hasek sends up both the sense of patriotism and of nationhood. This is the best novel to show the true realities of what World War I actually meant. History of Britain by Simon Schama (Trilogy) The history of the British Isles is so vast and complex that it takes a true genius to be able to pick and choose those elements which were pivotal and make them seem connected. Schama does this by finding the people who were larger than life throughout the ages and bring them into brief but sparkling clarity. His examination of George III and the American Revolution is very profound in how he approaches this era looking at what the British as a nation miss out in when the espoused beliefs of the colonists are proclaimed.

[herrblumen]

Prepping for a Pre-Gen Storyline - D&D 5E

I'm not used to using other people's stuff to do my sessions in Dungeons and Dragons. I've very rarely even referenced the stories which are canon to the whole TSR/WotC thing. "I'm not going to use other people's work and pass it off as my own!" is my cry. Nevertheless, we had a baby 17 months ago and I'm having to adjust to this lack of time to get ready to go. So I'm running the Lost Mines of Phandelver. We're approaching session 3 the day after tomorrow and I'm a bit anxious about how my usual ebb and flow of NPC's will go. Often I have a cheat sheet with options for any possible NPC and make that character on the go. That's not a possiblity here. All those important people have names, descriptions and everything already. I know, I could skin them as I see fit, but the point is that my prep is more focused now and needs to render the general direction that Mike Mearls and Co. want you to experience. My beef is that I thrive on the unknown just as much as the players. I have all my salient plot points ready, but I don't really assign all the minor roles out to my mental cast of millions. With having all these characters established, I get the faintest twinge of stage-fright. In the end, I'm not out there trying to copy the style or flow of Chris Perkins or whomever, but the feeling of my personal grasp of the unknown is a little disappointing. How do any of you other DM/GM's handle NPC's that someone else generated?

[herrblumen]

The Thought Provoking Dungeon Master's Dilemma

I once had a group of PC's who wouldn't budge from the proverbial openning gambit in a tavern. I dropped hook after hook. Nothing doing. They knew this was a one-off day, so there is no harm in waiting for something crazy, silly or stupid. I will admit, I went for the stupid factor with a modicum of silly to boot. "The wall of the tavern is blasted in and you hear those most dreaded of words: 'Oh, yeah!'" I hit them with the Kool-Aid Man. I had to do something. I summoned a water-elemental flavored with cherry-limeade, if I recall correctly. My brother-in-law still laughs about this. And, occasionally, it makes me a little sad that my storylines are often the lesser parts of reminiscences where as the fighting, the bizarre twists and the commraderie of the table is what is recalled. I spend a lot of time preparing for these game-nights. I try to nuance every last thing to be engaging. I try to tailor the encounters so that at some point each player feels like they're in the spotlight. I look for those moments where I can craft the story which they will want to come back to time and again. But they don't. They joke about fighting the Kool-Aid Man. Now, I could take this on the nose and pout. I could ask why it was such a good memory, but I know why: the game isn't about my story or the plot development which will lead to another hook. It isn't about giving them all the time to shine. It is solely about what the whole table finds to be fun. This is the dilemma of any DM who thinks like I do. Our purpose might seem on the surface to be about the players: I'm going to give them the best experience. I'm going to craft the tale of the ages. That sure sounds like a lot of "I" in that argument. The goal is for us all to have fun. So what if my hooks are dismissed. The trait that they really need from their DM is flexibility. The asset of finding value in what they're doing or not doing at that very moment. I got fed up with them not wanting a real story hook and gave them a joke encounter. That was the best encounter of that group, I think, and it was all due to making it about them and not me.

[hunnybadgerv]

how to check if a d20 is cursed, thought you might like it :D

Oh, this is interesting. I might have to try this out. But I never would have thought about this.

[thecreativecoalition]

it actually works. i ended up doing it with all my old dice and about 2/3s of them landed on low numbers

[thevisceraldungeonmaster]

public service announcement to the rpg world (again)

[herrblumen]

...Know what I'm doing this weekend...

[herrblumen]

Târgu Mureș - The Quiet City

I’ve spent about half a year total in Târgu Mureș and I think it is the sum total of the Transylvanian experience in one small city. I’ve visited Sighișoara and Cluj. They’re cool. The former is so obsessed with itself and its past that it can’t see past the tourism revenues to redefine itself uniquely. The latter is hip and forward thinking, a university town with an anger management problem toward both Bucharest and Budapest.

For me, the simple bustle of Târgu Mureș is enough to satisfy the ache for grappling with both the modern and the past.

The city center is dominated by the competing Catholic and Orthodox churches. Within the confines of this long, floral boulevard, one sees evidence of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Art Deco Hapsburg styling and where Ceausescu told the boys next door, “Anything you can build, I can build more awkwardly.” It fits, though. Somehow. The historic next to the socialist, the monumental next to a post-Soviet casino. The colors of the landscaping are stunning and the food wafting through the streets is sublime. Oh, that food.

This isn’t a city to be taken in on a quick trip through town. The beauty here lies in the people and the indelible marks of two cultures which were on a collision course since the rise of both the late Arpad dynasty in Hungary and the Wallachian principalities away South. This city lies in the heart of what once was a Hungarian dominated region. It was possibly one of the first places to have Franciscans build a church in all of Transylvania (speculated to have been in the late 12th or early 13th century). The charter is from the early 14th century and was already an important market town at that time. It is the home of non-Euclidian geometry, thanks to Janos Bolyai. It was the contemplative home of writers and revolutionaries from both great cultures. This crossroads sentiment has always defined it. The Romanians have long had a presence but were in the minority until the rise of communism. Their presence has shifted in scope, but this city still has a texture of both.

Today, I love the feel of this combination of the Hungarian and Romanian cultures. They both bring a storied history of anticipation and adaptation. I got to see much of the beauty of this city close up, in cafes and concerts. In the old buildings and the water park. On the tongues of young and old alike. In the streets which seem to lead nowhere and in the massive castle on the hill. Mostly, the beauty was in the people and their sense of timelessness which they were ready to share.