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Summary: Rollenspieler → RSP
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< : Für *Rollenspieler* gibt es ebenfalls eine eigene [[RSP]] Kategorie.
< The official URL for this site is http://www.emacswiki.org/alex/.\\
< I'm planning to move to http://alexschroeder.ch/ eventually. ;)
to
> Für *Rollenspieler* gibt es ebenfalls eine eigene [[RSP]] Kategorie.
This is both a wiki (a website editable by all) and a blog (an online diary about the stuff AlexSchroeder reads and does). If you’re a friend or relative, you might be interested in reading Life instead of this page. If you’ve come here from an RPG blog, you might want to head over to RPG. There are other similar categories to be found on the SiteMap.
Für Rollenspieler gibt es ebenfalls eine eigene RSP Kategorie.
Recently Joshua Petronis-Akins asked in the Pendragon RPG Google+ community: Could anyone sell me on Pendragon? What makes it cool?
Coming from a D&D background, this is what made us want to play Pendragon RPG and The Great Pendragon Campaign:
I really like the combat system: your skill is a number; roll below this number to succeed, roll the exact number to succeed critically. In a round, there is no need to roll for initiative. It’s all opposed checks. If you want to fight multiple opponents, you must split your skill between all your opponents and roll for each one. This is devastating. If you hit, roll damage. The opponent checks whether this value is higher than their knockback stat. If so, succeed at a horsemanship test or fall off the horse. Armor reduces damage. You can further reduce damage using a shield, but only if you had a “partial success”—only if you succeeded in your check but lost against an opponent who succeeded with a higher roll.
Critical hits count as 20. If your skill rises above 20, just add that much to your roll. If your skill is 23, you roll 1d20+3. Thus, your crit range in effect is 17–20.
It’s interesting, it’s different, and it still works.
Our campaign is still in the Anarchy period.
There’s a German campaign wiki, if you want to take a look: Ritter von Salisbury.
Things we’re not that much into:
I bought the books in 2011 from RPG Now, and they’re still doing fine:
The party had just finished The Eternal Boundary and had found a treasure map that would lead them into The Gray Waste. I prepared a very linear adventure that you can see on the on the right. I decided that the map represented an incomplete list of dangers to be overcome:
I also had a number of NPCs in mind:
This was the first challenge: figure out whom to trust and discover through questions that Raud would lead them to the wrong layer on Hades since Oinos ≠ Niflheim. This was also the opportunity for them to learn about the apathy of Hades. One player expertly decided to spend 100gp on books with jokes, fart machines and other ludicrous things to drive away apathy and despair.
They don’t contact Njal but they do talk to Raud and end up going with Lissandra. They made such a good impression on her, in fact, that she decides to tell them about a merchant called Kherion Mallibrun (described in the section about Death of Innocence in the Planes of Conflic box). In return, he wants them to protect him from Hekate’s trolls.
This was the second challenge: take along a guide and avoid fighting rock pythons and giant squirrels on the branches of Yggdrasil.
The dragon is easy: the third challenge is simply to be quiet. The cleric is prepared and casts silence. No problem.
The woods and trolls present the fourth challenge: unbeknownst to the players, I had decided that the forest houses both wolves and trolls. Even though the party was silenced, the wolves had picked up their scent and the trolls were following the wolves. One player who plays a character that can fly decided to take a listen and fly overhead. He soon discovers the wolves and using the fillings of a little rocket full of itching powder they disable the wolves’ scent ability and the flying character distracts and enrages the trolls until they break off the chase.
In the village, they see that the merchant is selling colorful textiles and the fifth challenge is finding a guide to the island. They discover that there is a hunter of nightmares who will lead them in exchange for the funny articles one of the characters had bought. This part was all improvised but it worked well.
He warns them of the giant, flightless birds. Luckily they are slow. The party buys horses for the three characters in plate armor and can thus outrun the the sixth challenge, the Diakka birds.
I had thought that the nightmares would be the next challenge but at the table I suddenly felt strange using the nightmares as predators. As I had seen one of the players get really excited about the prospect of catching and taming a nightmare, I decided that the seventh challenge would be the temptation of catching a nightmare. The party would have to start a fight. And they didn’t…
The eight challenge had not been listed on the “treasure map”: flying yeth hounds. The party moved away from their baying (it’s effect only works within 100 ft.) and decided to avoid the dogs. It worked.
At the edge of the sea of fog, they left their guide who, when asked, said that all they had to do was ignore the larva. And they did. No talking, no eye contact, no listening. Again, the party used silence to bypass the ninth challenge. It worked.
Finally, they reached the witch, the tenth challenge. I decided to use witches from the Shark Den section of the Caverns of Slime, Vialashta and Kurmatesha, the four lesser witches, the tengu horn, and my own treasure I had rolled up. As you can see, I had prepared a different night hag in my notes (including a 65% magic resistance)… Oh well. There was a lot of talking, bluffing and haggling involved, a short discussion on the merits of both Odin and Hekate, but in the end, the orc witch has charmed the talking character and disappeared into the tent and the fight was on.
The party consisted of a cleric 5, a fighter 4, an elf 2, and some henchmen: two giant apes, a cleric 4, a fighter 2, and a magic-user 1.
The enemies:
Kurmatesha is reduced to less than 10 hit-points in two rounds. She, in turn, blows the horn and summons the tengus, then polymorphs into a shadow wolf. The party then kills her and have a quick chat with the tengu. They want the horn (and their freedom), but one character is close enough to the horn to blow it again, at which point I decide that the tengu are all dispelled.
The second half of the battle is a running battle as the witches are standing under the hanging tree, cursing all that approach. With a desperate rush, a character delivers the arrow that has silence cast on it to the witches. The witches start releasing ghouls but they are being turned as fast as they are being released. Finally, when the crow witch Vialashta is finally held using magic, the remaining lesser witches flee into the sea of fog.
The witch tells them that the hanging tree is guarding the treasure and since they stocked up on oil and hadn’t used any of it, I decided that burning a 15 HD tree required 15 flasks of oil—and having bought 20 flasks of oil without having to use them against the trolls, that was no problem at all…
Tags: RPG
Old School
Caverns of Slime 
Comments on 2013-05-15 Treasure Hunting In Niflheim
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> ----
> [[gravatar:http://ynasmidgard.blogspot.com Ynas Midgard:ad5a065323fdec5121f5b6c2bf723490]]
> @ Alex
> Nice game :) What a memorable treasure trove.
> @ Harald
> "summons twelve tengu once per day: crow-headed, flying swordsmen (HD 5; AC 7; Atk 1 two handed glass swords (2d6); MV 9 fly)"
> -- [http://ynasmidgard.blogspot.com Ynas Midgard] 2013-05-15 15:43 UTC
What does the horn of the mountain cedar do?
– Harald 2013-05-15 11:40 UTC
Ynas Midgard @ Alex Nice game
What a memorable treasure trove.
@ Harald “summons twelve tengu once per day: crow-headed, flying swordsmen (HD 5; AC 7; Atk 1 two handed glass swords (2d6); MV 9 fly)”
– Ynas Midgard 2013-05-15 15:43 UTC
Recently I left a comment on Philip Watson's thread on Google+ where he wondered whether players should know when their thief failed to hide. I said:
Consequences happen right after the result of the die roll is known. As a referee, I have have no “information advantage” and thus the question of unfairness doesn’t come up.
I was reminded of Courtney Campbell’s blog post On Skill Deconstruction: Why Roll for Resolution? He lists five reasons for rolling dice.
I’m trying to have thieves succeed automatically whenever possible. I’m going to opt for dice rolling when the conditions listed above are true. If the dungeon has wandering monsters, each failed roll to open a door or unlock a chest means one check for wandering monsters. If there are no monsters, we don’t need to know how long the thief takes to unlock the chest. It will succeed eventually.
Tags: RPG 
Comments on 2013-05-14 When To Roll
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< [[gravatar:Http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.com -C:9cf021732ee0339d3a073e62564ba7be]]
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> [[gravatar:http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.com -C:9cf021732ee0339d3a073e62564ba7be]]
-C I still struggle with this often.
Extra rolls are a fast route to a dull game. Normally I roll for opening doors just once, on a failure there is no chance of surprise. The attempt always draws a wandering monster roll.
– -C 2013-05-15 08:58 UTC
Ever since I stopped listening to music on iTunes, scrobbling is absolutely broken. I listen to music on at least three different Apple devices, sync them with iTunes every now and then, checked “Enable iPod submissions” using playlist “zuletzt gespielt” which is defined as matching both of these rules: “last played in the last 3 months” and “media kind is not podcast” with live updating. I listen to music practically constantly. If you check my profile, you’ll note huge gaps everywhere. Why is that? Are the devices “overwriting” each other? iScrobbler says 586 items queued. Ok… All I’m seeing is two new items. 
That’s a lot of titles…
You’ll notice that The Beatles have made a big comeback in 2013. 
Tags: Music 
I just posted my nominations for the One Page Dungeon Contest 2013. I also liked the following entries.
I saw Roger the GS’ recommendations the other day. What about your favorites?
Comments on 2013-05-13 Other Favorite Entries
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> [[gravatar: AlexSchroeder:e33b88db6bc04e1c93db25c702baea28]]
> Oops, fixed. Thanks!
> -- AlexSchroeder 2013-05-13 21:15 UTC
Paul Gorman Your link to your nominations points to the Edit page.
– Paul Gorman 2013-05-13 19:32 UTC
AlexSchroeder Oops, fixed. Thanks!
– AlexSchroeder 2013-05-13 21:15 UTC
I’ve finished reading the submissions to the One Page Dungeon Contest 2013. As always, an interesting mix of styles. Less tombs than in previous years. The ever popular “get into the dungeon and trigger a trap” is there. Bandits, undead, but no pirates! This year’s popular rare monster must have been the gibbernig mouther. It showed up in three submissions. 
Gibbering Mouthers:
I wanted to comment on my nominations for the contest winners. I’ve done this before (2010, 2011, 2012). Writing it all down helps me think it through.
The One Page Dungeon Contest is just so damn useful it amazes me every year.
Comments on 2013-05-13 My One Page Dungeon Contest Nominations
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> [[gravatar: AlexSchroeder:e33b88db6bc04e1c93db25c702baea28]]
> Having painted the [http://otherworldminiatures.co.uk/shop/demons-devils/dd1a-the-demon-idol-diorama-pack/ Otherworld Miniatures demon idol], I concur! Best old school cover. :)
> -- AlexSchroeder 2013-05-16 08:17 UTC
B. Pace The Demon Idol is my favorite - although I’m a bit biased since that is my favorite old school book cover 
– B. Pace 2013-05-16 03:16 UTC
AlexSchroeder Having painted the Otherworld Miniatures demon idol, I concur! Best old school cover. 
– AlexSchroeder 2013-05-16 08:17 UTC
This topic ties together two topics that probably don’t see too much overlap.
The problem: the party of characters my players run is huge. Even if there are usually only around ten characters that are part of a single session, there are more than thirty primary and secondary characters on the status page. Given the wiki table for the status page, how can I quickly add up the correct XP and gold values? Any XP gained is shared equally amongst the characters that took part in the session but any gold gained is distributed according to each characters share. Primary characters get a full share, secondary characters get a third of a share.
I used Emacs widget mode to create a page like this:
XP total: 805 Gold total: 7191 [X] Schalk [ ] Uluf [ ] Witschik [X] Schachtmann [ ] Sirius [X] Logard [X] Arnd [X] Tinaya [ ] Pyrula [ ] Pijo [ ] Garo [X] Zeta [ ] Pipo [X] Fusstritt [ ] Thor [ ] Jack [ ] Gloria [ ] Hermann [ ] Urs [ ] Alpha [ ] Beta [ ] Gamma [ ] Boden [ ] Basel [ ] Bern [X] Nuschka [ ] Moranor [ ] Axirios Hectaxius [Go!]
And here’s the code to do it:
(defconst fünf-winde-regexp "^\\(|\\[\\[\\(.*?\\)\\]\\][ \t]*|[ \t]*\\(1\\|1/3\\)[ \t]*\\)|\\([ \t]*[0-9]+[ \t]*\\)|\\([ \t]*[0-9]+[ \t]*\\)"
"Regular expression to parse the Status page.
\(let ((str (match-string 1))
(name (match-string 2))
(share (match-string 3))
(xp (match-string 4))
(gold (match-string 5)))
...\)")
(defvar fünf-winde-buf nil
"Source buffer.")
(defvar fünf-winde-xp nil
"XP share.")
(defvar fünf-winde-gold nil
"Gold share.")
(defvar fünf-winde-party nil
"Charakters in the party.")
(defun fünf-winde-xp-and-gold ()
"Hand out Gold and XP."
(interactive)
(let ((buf (current-buffer))
(names))
(save-excursion
(goto-char (point-min))
(while (re-search-forward fünf-winde-regexp nil t)
(setq names (cons (match-string 2) names))))
(switch-to-buffer "*Fünf Winde*")
(kill-all-local-variables)
(set (make-local-variable 'fünf-winde-buf) buf)
(make-local-variable 'fünf-winde-xp)
(make-local-variable 'fünf-winde-gold)
(make-local-variable 'fünf-winde-party)
(let ((inhibit-read-only t))
(erase-buffer))
(remove-overlays)
(setq fünf-winde-xp
(widget-create 'integer
:size 13
:format "XP total: %v\n"
0))
(setq fünf-winde-gold
(widget-create 'integer
:size 13
:format "Gold total: %v\n"
0))
(setq fünf-winde-party
(apply 'widget-create 'checklist
(mapcar (lambda (name)
`(item ,name))
(nreverse names))))
(widget-insert "\n")
(widget-create 'push-button
:notify (lambda (&rest ignore)
(fünf-winde-process
fünf-winde-buf
(widget-value fünf-winde-xp)
(widget-value fünf-winde-gold)
(widget-value fünf-winde-party)))
"Go!")
(widget-insert "\n")
(use-local-map widget-keymap)
(local-set-key (kbd "q") 'bury-buffer)
(local-set-key (kbd "SPC") 'widget-button-press)
(local-set-key (kbd "<left>") 'widget-backward)
(local-set-key (kbd "<up>") 'widget-backward)
(local-set-key (kbd "<right>") 'widget-forward)
(local-set-key (kbd "<down>") 'widget-forward)
(widget-setup)
(goto-char (point-min))
(widget-forward 1)))
(defun fünf-winde-process (buf total-xp total-gold party)
(message "(fünf-winde-process (get-buffer \"%s\") %d %d '%S)"
buf total-xp total-gold party)
(switch-to-buffer buf)
(save-excursion
(let ((xp-shares 0)
(xp-share nil)
(gold-shares 0)
(gold-share nil))
(goto-char (point-min))
(while (re-search-forward fünf-winde-regexp nil t)
(let ((name (match-string 2))
(share (match-string 3)))
(when (member name party)
(setq gold-shares (+ gold-shares
(cond ((string= share "1/2") 0.5)
((string= share "1/3") (/ 1.0 3))
(t (string-to-number share))))
xp-shares (1+ xp-shares)))))
(setq gold-share (/ total-gold gold-shares)
xp-share (/ total-xp xp-shares))
(goto-char (point-min))
(while (re-search-forward fünf-winde-regexp nil t)
(let ((str (match-string 1))
(name (match-string 2))
(share (match-string 3))
(xp (match-string 4))
(gold (match-string 5)))
(when (member name party)
(setq gold (format (concat "%9d")
(+ (string-to-number gold)
(* gold-share (cond ((string= share "1/2") 0.5)
((string= share "1/3") (/ 1.0 3))
(t (string-to-number share))))))
xp (format (concat "%9d")
(+ (string-to-number xp)
xp-share)))
(replace-match (concat str
"|" xp
"|" gold))))))))I’m not sure I’m spending my time wisely, but there you go. I used to have a simpler piece of code that helped me distribute XP and gold separately. The drawback was that it would ask me for every person in the table “was this character in the party? (y/n)” and that’s a lot of yes and no replies if you go through the list twice.
It’s also a stark reminder that simpler old rules doesn’t automatically mean less work for the referee. With D&D 3.5, I had a spreadsheet to compute the XP gained based on challenge rating and character level. It wasn’t something to do quickly without a book in front of me. Now the complexity of the task has been reduced, but the number of characters has exploded to compensate!
Tags: Emacs
RPG
Old School 
Once again, I’m syncing my wife’s iPhone using iTunes and half way through the process it claims that it can’t do it because the computer is out of disk space. With more than 9 GB on the main hard disk and much more on the external hard disk (and a link from ~/Library/Application Support/MobilySync to the external hard disk), this is simply impossible. Strangely enough, synchronization continues anyway.
Luckily I remembered what to do: open preferences, find the backup for my wife’s device and delete it. Done. Now I can sync without any messages interrupting it. Strange.
Comments on 2013-05-07 iPhone Sync and Not Enough Disk Space
This is based on How to Convert Unprotected WMA Files Into MP3 Files. I’m leaving the instructions here for my future self. 
for file in *.wma; do
mplayer -vo null -vc dummy -af resample=44100 \
-ao pcm:file="${file%%.[Ww][Mm][Aa]}.wav" "$file"
lame --preset standard "${file%%.[Ww][Mm][Aa]}.wav" \
"${file%%.[Ww][Mm][Aa]}.mp3"
done Use locate lame|grep 'lame$' and locate mplayer|grep 'mplayer$' to find the location of your executables. On a Mac, they’re probably not on your PATH… I installed MPlayer OSX and iTunes-LAME to get the executables. You’ll need to do something similar.
This is the result I just used for some files with upper case file extension:
for file in *.WMA; do
"/Applications/MPlayer OSX.app/Contents/Resources/External_Binaries/mplayer_intel.app/Contents/MacOS/mplayer" \
-vo null -vc dummy -af resample=44100 \
-ao pcm:file="${file%%.[Ww][Mm][Aa]}.wav" "$file"
"/Applications/iTunes-LAME.app/Contents/Resources/lame" \
--preset standard "${file%%.[Ww][Mm][Aa]}.wav" \
"${file%%.[Ww][Mm][Aa]}.mp3"
done Reading Raspberry Pi: WLAN einrichten… I bought the Nano-WLAN-USB-Stick 150 Mbps by hama.
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ lsusb Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0424:9512 Standard Microsystems Corp. Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0424:ec00 Standard Microsystems Corp. Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0bda:8176 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8188CUS 802.11n WLAN Adapter pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo apt-get install firmware-realtek Paketlisten werden gelesen... Fertig Abhängigkeitsbaum wird aufgebaut. Statusinformationen werden eingelesen.... Fertig firmware-realtek ist schon die neueste Version. 0 aktualisiert, 0 neu installiert, 0 zu entfernen und 0 nicht aktualisiert.
Apparently I installed it already. iwlist wlan0 scan results in a lot of output. Including the network I’m looking for:
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ iwlist wlan0 scan | grep Schroeder
ESSID:"Schroeder"Set your network and password using sudo nano /etc/wpa.conf. This is what you want:
network={
ssid="YOUR-SSID"
proto=RSN
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
pairwise=CCMP TKIP
group=CCMP TKIP
psk="WPA-PASSWORD"
}Edit the list of interfaces using sudo vi /etc/network/interfaces and append the following:
auto wlan0 iface wlan0 inet dhcp wpa-conf /etc/wpa.conf
I was astonished to find some stuff relating to wlan0 in the file already. Anyway, I followed the instructions…
Restart and check:
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet Hardware Adresse b8:27:eb:81:a6:af
inet Adresse:192.168.2.3 Bcast:192.168.2.255 Maske:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metrik:1
RX packets:114 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:94 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
Kollisionen:0 Sendewarteschlangenlänge:1000
RX bytes:17450 (17.0 KiB) TX bytes:14232 (13.8 KiB)
lo Link encap:Lokale Schleife
inet Adresse:127.0.0.1 Maske:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metrik:1
RX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
Kollisionen:0 Sendewarteschlangenlänge:0
RX bytes:1104 (1.0 KiB) TX bytes:1104 (1.0 KiB)
wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet Hardware Adresse 80:1f:02:8f:91:26
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metrik:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
Kollisionen:0 Sendewarteschlangenlänge:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)The last entry is shows that we didn’t get an IP number. Oops! It turns out that there is some other stuff in the /etc/network/interfaces file that might interfere. Commenting them out, I have:
auto lo iface lo inet loopback iface eth0 inet dhcp # allow-hotplug wlan0 # iface wlan0 inet manual # wpa-roam /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf # iface default inet dhcp auto wlan0 iface wlan0 inet dhcp wpa-conf /etc/wpa.conf
Still doesn’t work, however. I tried a few variants for the config files. Nothing seemed to work. This makes me so tired. I’m not sure I’m learning much. This is “fiddling with GNU/Linux” and frustrating. 
Then I read How to install Wifi on a Raspberry Pi which tells you to install wicd-curses.
That seemed to work! Suddenly ifconfig provided me with an IP number for wlan0. I removed the ethernet cable, rebootet, and was unable to connect. Did the IP number change? Is DHCP taking too long? Why is bonjour not working? Patience! It just takes forever to boot. After a minute—long enough to write this paragraph--it suddenly worked:
alex@Pyrobombus ~$ ssh pi@raspberrypi.local pi@raspberrypi.local's password: Linux raspberrypi 3.6.11+ #371 PREEMPT Thu Feb 7 16:31:35 GMT 2013 armv6l
Yay!
Tags: Raspberry Pi 
Comments on 2013-05-07 Raspberry Pi WiFi
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> ----
> If you get a powered hub, your Pi will take power from it too!
> -- [http://sheep.art.pl Radomir Dopieralski] 2013-05-16 18:15 UTC
If you start X, there is a GUI app on the desktop to set up the wifi 
– Radomir Dopieralski 2013-05-08 08:07 UTC
AlexSchroeder Hah. The problem there is how to provide keyboard, mouse and wifi all at the same time without a USB hub. I think I need a hub.
– AlexSchroeder 2013-05-08 10:17 UTC
If you get a powered hub, your Pi will take power from it too!
– Radomir Dopieralski 2013-05-16 18:15 UTC
Referrers: Blogroll Akiyama's Blog The City of Iron rsp-blogs.de
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