Motivation and Knowing Your Limits

So since I am crazy behind on games to posts, I am going to lump the two of my regular D&D games into this post and give you all some thoughts on the upcoming game I have this Sunday. 

For the whole of this game (overarching story line) our characters have been labeled as the harbingers of the apocalypse for the continent of Khovaire and capable of changing the world around us through our actions.  We have fought together, made allies, made enemies, and come to know each other's motivations along the way.  For the most part my character has had her schemes, but each scheme has been "fulfilled" or met in some way, leaving my character now with having to find a "sense of purpose".  Of course I don't mean this in a mean way at all, I think that when you have a good DM who wants your plans/schemes for your character to succeed, this is a position in which you will naturally find yourself.  The struggle I am facing is just trying to figure out what my character is wanting to accomplish, which is getting to be more difficult as the game is quickly coming to an end.

Anyway, what I really have to worry about now is getting ready to fight someone who is several levels higher than our group who is INSANELY powered.  I guess I should backtrack though and give you some background on this character.  This is supposed to be the father of one of the party members who is partly ruler to the fey realm, is pretty much considered a deity, and calls himself the "Prince of Thorns" (which by the way I have the hardest time not calling him the Prince of Thrones...it just rolls off the tongue better right?!).  He wields magic but is strong, fast, adept with melee weapons, and immune to a shit ton of stuff (like paralysis which is the bread and butter of my character).  All in all this dude is a huge bad ass and this is going to be a really tough fight.  If you don't believe that this is going to be a tough fight just from that...our DM gave us 2.5 million gold to spend to get ready...so yeah we are so fucked right now.  Pretty much this break from work over the holidays is going to be me making of a list of shit that I need to buy to try and not die when we go to battle.

Basically I am writing this post in reverse...I have given you the problems my character is facing with this overpowered character and the failing of her motivations at her current state, so now here is the background as per what has happened in the story.  My character has had a romantic interest with another party member and they are pretty awesome together and by awesome I mean we have 12 pages of saved gchat conversations of their relations so this is a pretty epic relationship.  A few games ago he kind of became King of Karrnath and then the whole of the continent, which is really awesome and fantastic for your boyfriend to be ruler of everything right?!  Well my character might have kind of been a little bitchy-just the tiniest bit and now he thinks that they "broke up"...which totally wasn't the case at all (if you asked her at least).  So now two games later we are getting ready to go into this huge fight and they still haven't had a chance to talk things out.  To be fair though we did try, but there was so much going on that the opportunity never came up until the very end in which we got ourselves set up for this fight.   That means that if we don't get a chance to talk before this fight, one of us could die (a very real possibility put forth by our DM) and that means that the last things we talked about were petty passive aggressive words to each other-which really doesn't make me feel great at all.

So this is the predicament that I find myself and my character.  This might really be a scattered post and didn't really give much about the actual story that we encountered, but these are the main things that I have found myself thinking about in reference to these sessions.  What is my character going to do in this situation with the Prince of Thorns?  So far she has been intelligent in her reasoning, quiet in her opinions, and very mild in her manner of actions; but now we NEED to win, we HAVE to work together successfully, and melding into the background isn't any option anymore.  I need to bring in some of Sylara (my Star Wars character) and fuck some shit up-in a constructive way-and push Kai passed the way she has previously acted.  I have relied on what I thought my character's strong points were, but really was really resting on it more like a crutch.  It made me feel as though my character wasn't as powerful or as "useful" as other characters, but this is going to be a changing point and it's really a do or die situation.

I guess this Sunday will be the reckoning for our characters and we will fight for our motivators and push past our limits to hopefully find victory and not the death of our friends....

Hard Places, Harder Decisions

First I need to apologize for the delay...the past few weeks have been really crazy busy and I have had hardly anytime to catch my breath, let alone write a post.  But I have some very persistent readers that I very much appreciate the push from, so let's get into this shall we?  So many things to discuss and so many hurdles to leap together...

So to start the Star Wars game; I am going to try and not run both the games I had together, but I can't promise that won't happen and really there are only one or two readers who will know :).  When we last left off from the Star Wars game, our group was sent with the mission to return to Coruscant (now occupied by Sith) and retrieve a holocron from one of the Senators.   When we thought about it, we thought about how easy that was going to be...I mean no big deal guys right?! Just walk right into the Sith headquarters and take a holocron-walk in the park.  Luckily, my beautiful and perfect Jun Fan (yes I will refer to him like Carlos from Night Vale #sorrynotsorry) arranged some "help" to the tune of clearing out the way for the most part so that we didn't meet up with any unnecessary unfriendlies whilst on the mission.  After said holocron was collected, we headed back to the ship, where we planned to meet up with the other part of our party. That's where things get interesting.

We did the biggest faux pas of RPGs and the one thing that any smart party will try as much to avoid doing...we split up.  For the most part things went "okay", aside from the other part of the party almost getting assassinated.  They were able though to work it out through negotiations and returned to the ship with their "ally", ready to bring us the good news of their discussion.  Turns out they had met up with a contract killer, hired to kidnap Harper (the heir to the Hapes' people) and through diplomacy and tactics managed to talk him out of that and instead into working with us to train some Silver Strikers (I am sure you guys remember those dickbags from the past post) that would be helpful to us.  That sounds really great guys right?! I mean we worked on diplomacy instead of just shooting the shit out of everything and made an ally.  Way to go us!!!

So here is the thing, I ALWAYS play safe characters, I try really hard to not rock the boat and not piss off other PCs.  Really it is always my intention to keep the other PCs and their designs in mind with my character's actions, I think it is only fair to the other players and their characters.  That being said, I did something more in line with what I thought my character would do and less what would be better for the party.  So WARNING to all you readers, IF you are going to do this-make sure you are ready for the fallout.  I wasn't and it has been tough to say the least.  But first let's get into what my character did....

Way back in a backstory from long long ago in a far away galaxy, my character was put on a mission to kill a contract merc named Ladden.  The mission was unsuccessful when she was pulled off the mission to start the quest (IE the game I am in now), so a mark was left alive, a job unfinished.  So we get back to the ship and guess who is there waiting for us...none other than the rest of the party and Ladden.  Good thing for my character, he didn't notice her at all, but she knew him and knew that this was the best chance that she was going to get to fulfill the mission.   So she plays up the flirty Twi'lek nature and talks with him and tells him to come to her room later and she can give him the lightsabers that he requested.  Of course he comes to her room, because duh and starts to put the moves on her.  She puts a lightsaber at his chest and intimidates the fuck out of him (I rolled a nat 20 guys, it was awesome) and pretty much tells him that after this deal is over then their fight begins and she will kill him this time.  Well apparently ol'boy didn't like that (go figure) and in the middle of space pulled his ship off from their ship, creating hull breaches and a huge clusterfuck of a mess.

As you can probably figure the rest of the party is abruptly awoken and about to shit their pants as to the fact that space is literally coming into the ship.  Arguably the most important person on the ship (Gannis-who happens to be from a holocron) is the main person who saved us, alongside on of the companions.  Needless to say Gannis was less than thrilled and as soon as we docked with the larger remaining Jedi fleet, left.  So yeah pretty much in one game I managed to lose the trust of my companions and turn over one of the most powerful allies the Jedi have to the Sith. 

Now I am picking up the pieces, working to fix everything, and trying to keep the galaxy from completely falling to the darkside...although if that happened, it wouldn't be too hard to make that switch. ;)

United We Fall, Divided We Stand

I didn't write that wrong....so this blog entry is directed at my dnd game from last Sunday (the Pathfinder one).  Really this title pretty much sums up the group and our outlook on how we have been fighting thus far.

So here is the deal basically with our characters.  So far every character, with the exception of mine and one other character, have no "family" interests in the happenings on the continent.  With that in mind, it makes it very hard for the party to come up with plans for what we "need" to do next with our actions.  We try and take turns focusing on each member as they come up through the story, but ultimately it is causing us to lose sight of our real goals.  All of our characters are connected through "dragon tattoos" that are symbols of the forthcoming end of the world.  Pretty much the death of our characters will cause Eberron to fall into hell.  So in the grand scheme of things, fighting for kingdoms for our characters to rule is really useless if we die in the process and end the world....just saying.

What our characters really need is to take a step back and re-evaluate what has happened to get us off track and work to get back on track to try and save the country.  Last game our DM did a really great job with doing that in showing exactly what happens with we manifest power through out tattoos.  We end up opening a rift straight from hell and letting all sorts of terrible demons/daemons/devils, and the like out and running completely unchecked on the land.  Not the greatest scenario (but on the plus side, when we had to fight 8 of them and I paralyzed 4 of them-so yay me!), but it gave our characters perspective that we really needed to refocus and get back into what the story is all about.  Hopefully next game we will get some of that ironed out and I will definitely let you know how that goes as the story progresses!

Oh guys okay so some exciting stuff for my character!!  Basically in my backstory I wrote that my character was in military service since a young age (totally normal for Karrnath) and so didn't have a lot of friends or family or anything in the story thus far (besides the party members). So we are getting ready to start a fight with King Kaius (who could literally murder the fuck out of us without even trying) and in walk 5 smoking hot ladies who look like my character...PLOT TWIST: my character has 5 "sisters" that were created as a strike team for the King.  So yeah, pretty much my character was supposed to be a Soviet-esque Green Beret, it's fantastic story guys.  The downside is that three of the girls turned out to be total bitches, but really they were just following orders and when your controller is a crazy high level, you tend to listen to them. So anyway, I have two sisters now that are hanging out with me..it's fantastic guys, I love it.  My character finally has someone who can understand what it's like being around "breathers" all the time.  So amazing.

Hmmm....what else happened....OH YEAH. So my boyfriend (in game, which is a really good girl friend IRL) was turned maybe slightly evil by his crazy King dad, that's fun to RP out.  Family issues all around...it's much easier to just kill off your family in your backstory; maybe Disney had something right in killing all the parents in their movies.  My character has to deal with that and also the implications of the actions of another character whose wife "infected" the rulers of the countries (all but 2) with a parasite that allows her to take control over them...sounds bad right?  Well the motives she had behind doing it make it not so bad-think the ends justifying the means.  Pretty much everyone else in the party doesn't agree with the fact that he knew beforehand and didn't tell anyone and thinks that there is something different he could have done to achieve the same results.  But it was done by the time he came into the picture, so really there wasn't anything he could have done to stop her and really made the best of the situation into which he was thrown.  My character can see that and is super intelligent (26 INT score) and so she understands him and what he did; in taking the blame for it all, he is a better character than the rest of us.  So she thinks that what he did was the best he could, but I have no clue how to bring that idea up to the rest of the party when they basically crucified him for it.

Next game I have two objectives:  get the rest of the sisters on my side and start a network through which we can gain supplies.  Second is going to be work to get the party truly united...it needs to happen or else we will all fail.  So we will see how that goes...I will keep you dear readers updated and hopefully I won't fail!!

PS...Guys, I MADE a prestige class on my own (well for the most part, I did have a bunch of help, but still this is impressive for me!), it's fantastic and when it's all done, I MIGHT share if you all are nice enough. ;)

Personal Goals vs Loyalty Part 2

Hey guys, here it is (drumroll)....my first vlog!!  I DEFINITELY need to apologize for my potato of a computer for not cooperating-honestly you should probably just listen to it and not watch it.  Also, I did this later in the evening so my hair is not the best.  In any case, enjoy!!

PS I hope you guys appreciate this...my computer has been uploading this video for over an hour.  The things I do for you kids!

Personal Goals vs Loyalty

Okay guys so this is going to be a two part blog entry...the first being this (duh) written part and then the second I will do in a few days as a video.  I wanted to do the video tonight, but it didn't really work out, so I figured I would do it later when I actually have the time and don't have to rush it.  You guys understand right?!  This portion is going to be mainly about my normal DnD Sunday game and then the video I will give the nitty gritty on the Star Wars game this past Sunday.

To start things off a quick recap shall we?  So for this past game my Lich (Kai is her name-I don't think I ever really mention the names of my characters so I apologize if you all have been kept at night because you don't know...I release this information to you now, so sleep well my friends.) managed to do some absolutely devious and fantastic experiments.  Basically, she doesn't have a phylactery (in her possession at least, "good" news is that in trying to make one she found out there is one in existence) so as a contingency plan, I used a discovery and a feat to make it so she can grow her own body double.  The whole idea of it is quite fantastic really, minus the whole "you have to keep your real body hidden so no one just goes and murders the f out it" thing.  But the basic idea is that you grow a complete copy of yourself and you can move your consciousness to that body.  Whenever that body "dies" you simply move back to your real body.  So you can die without the whole "truly dying and never coming back" repercussions.  I would like to say that has been successful except for the fact that the person I first used it against found her real body and messed with it; while they didn't do any real harm, it was enough to scare the shit out of me.

Hopefully with that in play though, my character will have a fairly good chance of surviving.  The next part of the story involves the fight we had against a fellow PC's character's father figure.  Imagine a very flamboyant and very powerful male fairy...and I mean the fey race.  He had a nice time of just fucking with us all and revealing to us that he knows entirely too much.  After that fight we were invited to a summit meeting of the rulers of Eberron to come to agreement on what to do with warring countries and create allies for the impeding war.  Of course we went to protect the King of Breland and low and behold we find out that the only country not invited was Karrnath (my character's homeland and probably the most evil country in Eberron).  Surprise surprise, when the summit starts the King of Karrnath bursts in (who by the way is a "smoking hot" vampire) and that is where our story left off. 

To say that I am excited about this Sunday and getting all this resolved is a bit of an understatement. I am terrified considering this dude is higher than a level 18 (I am pretty sure somewhere around 20?) and he can murderface us while not even trying probably.  But this is potentially also a storyline that can involve my character, so for that I am excited.  On that note, this part is more directly affecting my character's love interest as the king is his father, and he is hoping to kill him to take the throne and rule Karrnath.  I mean, don't get me wrong, that would be great, a good ruler to change the way Karrnath opperates..but let me just be a whiny child for a minute:  it was totally my scheme to rule Karrnath and I don't want to share ruling a country.  UGH....boys ruin everything!!  So my character's personal goals are changing and as the player, I am really unsure as to what her motivation should be:  should she want to still rule by herself or should she happy to have someone who she could more than likely rule by their side?  I am not really sure where to take her from here, so I will have to see how this Sunday's game goes and then go from there on what she will be scheming next.

Okay kids, it's late, I'm tired, and I have a very exciting day tomorrow for which I need to be rested and ready!!   

New Changes and Exciting things...

So super simple post right now guys...I am going to try and record a vlog tonight and give you all the recaps of the past two Sunday games I have had.  I figured (if I can get it to work) that it would be easier for my hands to not type about 22 hrs worth of gaming.  Hopefully that will be up tonight and you all can enjoy it later!!

Devious Schemes and the Dark Side

Guys I want to start this off with just a little exciting "announcement"....there are only a few more days until Halloween!!  So besides Christmas, Halloween is pretty much my favourite holiday and so I am just the tiniest bit excited for this Thursday.  Also what makes it more exciting is I will be going to Chicago to see some of my very best friends, which is shaping up to be the best Halloween ever.  I have my costume all made up for Thursday night (I am doing Korra and a friend is going as Bolin) and then on Friday I am trying to do something a that is relatively easy (I am thinking Sith or something like that).  In any case, I will have pictures galore and will probably post a few.  So how about we get on to the bulk of the post-my most recent Star Wars game....

Sunday was my alternating week for games, so I had Star Wars and it was a good game guys.  Sometimes I don't realize really how good games were until I talk about them with my friends afterwards.  Usually my next Monday is spent talking with a friend who is a player in this game and my DM in my D&D game, about everything that happened, what our plans are for the next level, and what plots and schemes we have in the works.  This Sunday's game was that type of game-really not that much happened (well I mean besides saving the next queen of Hapes-but I'll get to that later), but there was so much development in some character relations that it made the game really more dynamic. 

Here is a "quick" rundown of what actually happened in our game.  I would like to give the caveat before that we are breaking canon and rewriting the story and let me tell you, our game would make a GREAT episode 7 (although it takes place during the first three).  Our story opens with our characters and the other people on the ship (Obi Wan, Olin, Reyas, Tryss, Gannis, and some Sith prisoner we have) and we are on our way to Hutt Space for a mission.  Obi Wan gets all uppity and says he and Reyas (who is his son) need to leave and to dock and a specific trading station.  So we do that, Flynn (who is my friend's character) tries to get the Sith to stay with us under his control, she objects and leaves on the station.  While we are on the station selling our stuff from last session, we are jumped by 2 other Sith Lords and we manage to keep one alive and take back to the ship. 

After finishing up on the trading station we take back to our prisoner to the ship and start talking to her about what she knows and where the rest of the Sith are located.  After we get the information out of her, we head our course for Tatooine and then slave auction there.  Once we get there, we have some time to kill and so we get to just do whatever (it's really the first chance our characters have had to have any "fun"), so my character heads out with Master Olin, who is in command, to the bars to experience the "high-brow" bar setting of smugglers, thieves, and slavers.  Really it was a lot of fun and gave my character a chance to flirt with him-which will be important later.

The next day we all go to the slave auction to apparently "finish" our mission.  There we are supposed to buy the next Queen Mother of Hapes, but not before we have to watch some poor younglings get auctioned off....guys, I have to tell you, I hate kids, but it this was pretty sad.  Once the younglings have sold, the girl that we have been waiting for comes out, the bidding starts and goes on for a while, and then we (well one party member) decides to start shit with the 4 Sith that are hanging out around with us.  Eventually, as with all games, a fight ensues and we end up murdering the shit out the Sith.  It's really fantastic Sith killing, just combat in general is fantastic in Star Wars because on average I do about 40-50 damage per hit and I can use a Force Power and hit twice...soooo nice!  After the fight we grab the girl, head back to the ship, and get the f out of town.

So like I said, really not that much happened in the actual game, but the schemes that were laid, the conversations had, really make this game important.  My character has been searching for her "dead", now Sith Lord, old master and in the meantime, Flynn has been letting her so that he can eventually kill him.  My character starts a relationship with the commanding officer on board so that she can use him to get what she needs and just to have around as a good "bodyguard".  This is the very basic explanation of the scheme-y plots, but they can be total game changers should they work out how they are planned.  It's really going to be a race to see who can accomplish what first to see who "wins". 

Which comes to the next part of the title, relating to the Dark Side...our DM has made it clear that we can turn to the Dark Side.  We don't have to stay Jedi and it's not a game ender should we fall.   I find this really interesting in a game, because normally if you change alignments, it's a pretty big deal.  So to have the option to do so is very tempting.  I haven't decided how to take things and as of right now my character is not a Sith, but depending on how things esclate with our missions and the story, it might happen.  The devious part of me would love to just corrupt everyone and have them all turn to the Dark Side...who knows, my character can be very persuasive....

Hey YOU!! Yeah YOU!!

As most of you intelligent and I am sure beautiful readers will notice, I have a changed things a bit on my blog.  Well I want YOUR input, I am thinking of adding videos, more blog posts, reviews, and hopefully some other stuff.  So I am asking you guys, what do you like in blogs? What do you like here? What would want to see more of here?!  Let me know (oh God please be nice though!!) and I will try to make it more interesting and catered towards what you guys want!

Give me the Bad Touch....

Oh why hi there...didn't see you come by.  Yes yes do come in, have a seat, relax, and I'll get the tea started.  In the meantime I am sure you came to chat about the games I have had recently, so let's discuss these games I have had the past week.

Sunday game (i.e. Eberron DnD with my fantastic lich alchemist) was great this week.  Well great in that last time we leveled I was able to take Improved Paralysis, so now the DC for my "bad touch" (paralysis) is a rocking 29...oh yeah this is at level 8 also, so suck it BBEGs.  It really came in handy this past game and was super effective against the frost giants and blue dragons that we fought.  Oh yeah guys I forgot to also mention, since my character is from Karrnath and LOVES the undead, I am starting to form my own undead army.  I have made one Karrnath Deathless Zombie so far, which I love, he is sassy and fantastic and will make a great cohort once I can up his stats.  After this last battle though, I might be a little more excited because I will not only be controlling just a "normal" zombie, but also have TWO adult blue dragons under my control.  Guys, it was a good day for zombie making.  So those were the highlights of the game for my character on the positive side.  So since I am a lich and don't sleep, I do spend about 8 hours scheming, which really is only the responsible thing when you have so much free time.  So my scheme recently has been getting back to Karrnath, killing the king, and then taking over the country with my own undead army and having vast lands and spaces to let them all roam and do my bidding.  Pretty much I am a power hungry lich who wants to be a bad ass...and I don't really think anyone can fault me.  I mean I would be a bomb ass ruler-I never die, if I do, I just come back in d10 days....I would also be fantastic because she's hot guys-I mean like a 30 CHA hot, so yeah who doesn't want a hot ruler.  Now I know you might be thinking "well what do you stand for? What are your core ruling values?  Will you be fair, magnanimous?" well all those things will get figured out eventually, trivial matters really.  The whole point of this rambling was that, those were my schemes, and now another PC is encroaching on them!!  Which really for my character isn't a big deal, it the one PC that she has a romantic relationship with that is wanting to take over Karrnath, but it's still the principle of the matter!  I know I can't go CE and just use the whole party to get him to be ruler of Karrnath and then kill them all...although in my devious mind that is perfect and fantastic and I want to do that so bad, so back to the scheming board to find something else out.

Sunday game 2 (Star Wars), so this Sunday I play this game and I am torn on what to do.  Last game we sort of had a "coming to Jesus" talk about my character and her relationship with her old master, who is now an amazing Sith Lord, (I mean how can a girl resist that?!  Am I right ladies?!) and what that relationship means in terms of putting the whole of the Jedi population in danger.  To be honest, I think they were exaggerating just a bit...I mean the WHOLE Jedi population?  Probably just our group...but that does include Obi, so probably not  the best idea.  Anyway, all that will get sorted out soon enough.  SOON.  Oh yeah, I don't know if you guys caught that, but my character is pal-ing around with Obi-fucking-Kenobi, no big deal or anything.  I find myself fangirling out all the time (yes I know it is not a real game, but still I am excited about it okay?!) about the fact that on the regular we hang out with Obi.  I mean he stays on the ship with us, fights with us, enlightens us...it's really great guys. But all in all that is the highlight of the Star Wars game, I am sure though after this Sunday I will have many more fangirl moments and exciting tales to tell.

Wednesday game:  This is a new game we just started playing last night.  For this character I am using Lucan who is an 18th level Elf Ranger.  He is fantastic and based off one of my favourite podcasts (Drunks and Dragons-website here), Lucan the foul-mouthed elf.  I was thinking this would be easier to play, but am finding that I need to figure out some motivations for him-so props to Thrifty for playing him so well.  I have no doubts though that I will get him all figured out in a few games. I think that just comes with playing new characters in general, having to get your footing for their motivations and personality (see previous post for the deep shit).

Well friend, it seems the tea has finished, the crumpets are gone, and I must shoo you away for I have things to prepare, quests to adventure, and characters to level.  Till the next time you find yourself in my little nerd cave, I wish you nat 20s and may all your crits confirm!

Friendly Reminder

Guys I have to tell you, I am still here and gaming and very much invested in this blog!!  I promise I won't let go....like the last three times (whatever get off my back about that, I said I was sorry!).  Anyway this is just a teaser post....I have some awful test for work that I have been studying for, but next Monday it will all be over and I will be able to blog for you.  Since the wait has been awful, I will have not one, not two, BUT THREE games to tell you all about. So buy some adult diapers and get ready to piss yourselves from excitement....

Sacrificing Self: How Far are YOU willing to go?

Let me start this off by saying this isn't a self-help post.  I really don't think that I am in any situation to give personal advice to anyone about shit like that and I highly doubt anyone would want to listen to it.  (Don't get me wrong, I can listen to problems and give my opinion, but really not advice enough to warrant a self-help blog).  This is mostly about character motivations in games.  What is your character willing to live for, die for, or kill for?  How far will you go to complete what you are wanting to do.  I think whether or not you admit it, every character has these questions that you have to ask yourself as the player (albeit they don't have to be exactly hammered out and can just be a floating idea) in order to figure out what to do in certain situations.  In my Star Wars game and in a new game (WOD-World of Darkness) that I am playing, I have recently found myself needing to answer these questions; so let's dive right in shall we?

First, the Star Wars games:  as I have mentioned previously, my character in this game is basically a Sith Hunter who just found out that her Jedi Master that she thought was dead is really alive and a Sith Lord, as is her fellow apprentice who is turning to the darkside.  Throughout the whole game so far we have been dealing with the fallout of Order 66 and she has been trying to connect with the other apprentice the whole time.  Finally she does and figures out where they are and then the whole group is captured by Sith, where she thinks she has finally found him.  Turns out him and part of the party is forever away in the Hutt region of space and so after hijacking a small customized star destoryer, her and her companions travel out to rescue their comrades.  That's not completely the end of the story, but I am going to tie it all in at the end-just trust me.

Second is the WOD game that I just played last night.  This is my first time playing in this world and completely new system and I was not disappointed.  The whole thing with WOD is that the darkness and horrors of what lives in your nightmares is actually real and can/will murder the fuck out you.  My character is a dude-but really feels like probably playing the closest to myself as I have in a long while (no I am not a dude, just personality wise there are some close similarities). Anyway, we started the game out as humans and then through a brutal and vicious werewolf attack, my character is killed and then turned into a vampire.  We haven't really delved too much more into that world, but already from what I have played, it is very clear that the game focuses how you change the world, how what happens changes you, and to what extremes are you willing to go to get what you want.

So this leads me back to the title of my post.  As a player I am finding myself needing to answer the questions of what will my characters do?  How far will they go?  What will their motivations be? Tough questions my friend, tough questions.  But I think that in doing so it will make for stronger characters and hopefully give me a bit more direction and firm groundings in the decisions I make for my characters.

PS. I am going to apologize for the overall theme of this post.  One it took me pretty much all day to finish, so if it doesn't make sense-keep that to yourself sass pants, I would like to see you do better.  Two, this isn't particularly a super fun post, but something that I was thinking about since I have some fairly "serious" (for my characters at least) shit that has happened in recent games.  I promise though next time it will be better....you my readers are my motivation. :)

Deception, Insanity, and the Inner Workings of a Lovelorn Gamer

Man let me tell you guys, sometimes the hardest thing about the blogging is the title of each post.  I know I am not writing pure blog gold, but I do take a certain amount of pride in them-so I hope you enjoy them and if you don't well don't comment and tell me or I will neglect my blog for another 9 months.  Well now that I have that off my chest, let's delve into the meaty part that you all are just uncontrollably anxious to read....

Last Sunday was the second session of my Star Wars Saga game and let me tell you dear readers that I was not disappointed at all.  So pretty much (from what I am assuming I mentioned in a previous post) my group's characters had just survived Order 66 and now we are on our way kicking ass.  The best thing is that we are able to use dark side and force powers without any real repercussions due to a new class available that eventually grants us immunity to the dark side.  Now before all the hardcore Star Wars fans get on my ass about that, the basic idea behind it is that you essentially become an "enlightened" being and the force you use has neither a dark nor a light side.  It is simply focusing the midichlorians to achieve the outcome you want.  The idea of there being a "good" and "bad" way of using the force is all based on your character's perception of the force.  So in order to do this we have to make a will save and beat a set DC to not gain a dark side point-basically illustrating the aforementioned idea.  It's pretty awesome....I mean let me just say that now my character can just Dark Rage and Force Lightening all damn day-definite win in battle.  Anyway-all that happened last game, so this game we are off to find another Holocron that might be able to help the Jedi overcome the destruction caused by the Sith and the Empire.  For my character's backstory, I had a Jedi Master who was killed about a year ago and another padawan that she trained with, who after their Master's death, lost contract.  After Order 66 was executed, she reached out to the other padawan to see and make sure he was still alive.  When he reached back, he basically insinuated that he was captured by the Sith and was probably going to die soon.  My character relays this to the party and states she wants to go and find him to which they agree.  Well our plan is after grabbing this Holocron we are off to do that; instead though when we emerge from the Jedi temple, we are "greeted" (I use that term VERY loosely considering it was with force grip around our necks and not hugs and kisses) by 14 Sith apprentice and a Sith Lord.  The party is fighting like hell to get free and of course we don't, but we do manage to not die-always a win in our books.  The last thing thought that my character hears is the voice of her DEAD JEDI MASTER coming from the Sith Lord.  Oh and I forgot to preface this with the fact that she had a very intimate relationship with her Jedi Master (big no-no I know, but guys if you saw his character picture you would have the sex with him also), so she is pretty much freaking the f out by this.  Our DM is awesome and leaves it at a cliff hanger right there, so next session should be lots of fun involving torture, temptation, and a reunion to remember.  I will as always keep my inquiring minds updated on if my character makes a switch to being an awesome Sith instead of a Jedi...

The next part of this is really a follow-up to a post that I had earlier about my new love for podcasts.  I know I mentioned Drunks & Dragons and Cast of Thrones and probably Welcome to NightVale as well, but there is a new one that I have recently been alerted to and have not been disappointed with such far.  It is called Cthulhu and Friends and as you can guess, takes place in the Cthulhu world where nothing is weird and rolling for insanity is as common as seeing dark sea monsters.  The group is fantastic and has a great dynamic together and it doesn't hurt that their DM is a fellow lady.  In addition to those fantastic qualities, they are just starting out and so you get to experience the episodes as they come out and not have to try and catch up from two years worth of episodes.  Oh yeah and they are totally awesome on Twitter as well and I very much look forward to hearing more from them and their group.  If you want (and you DO WANT) to follow them on the Twitters, you can do so here: Cthulhu and Friends Twitter and from there you can follow each member individually.  In addition they have some entertaining followers (I'm looking at you David , well and myself, but I don't like to toot my own horn..) as well-check them out and follow them and you will not be disappointed.  I am making the disclaimer that there are times we get into epic Twitter conversations, so prepare your feed for that!

Now for the last part, which really is the most mundane.  Guys I have to tell what really grinds my gears when it comes to my playing video games.  I typically will embark on playing one every once in a while (and actually admitting this realization is probably the reason), not because I don't enjoy them.  Don't get me wrong, I LOVE video games, especially ones that have a fantastic story or are scary as shit.  My problem is that I get completely engrossed in the game and then have little to no time to finish it in a timely manner.  A perfect example is the Bioshock game; it came out in November and I started playing it on May and just finished it about three weeks ago.  That is entirely TOO long to finish a game and especially one that I loved playing.  Well the same thing is happening with Dishonored.  The permanent roommate and I have had this game since Christmas (Christmas for God's Sakes!!) and have yet to play it.  I started playing and thoroughly enjoy the game-save for the few problems I mentioned last post-and am still on the part I was last week, which is hardly breaking the surface of the game story.  I am hoping that I will have a few more opportunities to play this weekend perhaps or even next week, but we shall see.

Well that is all for this week folks.  I hope you have enjoyed your stay here, felt the safety of the blog, and will journey back from time to time and check in.

Fantasy, Reality, and Alternative Universes

As promised my dear readers, I have much to tell of my new D&D character, the changeling Lich.  I know you all have been desperately searching for information on this and I am happy to bring it to you.  To start things off, this is a new game and a new type of game that I have never really played before.  The world is Eberron-so think like steampunk meets WWII countries.  My character is from Karrnath, which is pretty much like Soviet Russia, but instead of normal soldiers, they only use super zombies/undead to fight.  Yeah I know, it's pretty awesome.  So it fits that my character is a Lich-although turning into one wasn't really her plan at all, it was more forced upon her.  In any case, she ran away to Breland (think England/America) and has joined a group of ragtag group and has since been going around adventuring and fighting the evil that is lurking within Breland.  Mostly it has just been trolls, hill giants, stone giants, and frost giants.  Pretty much all the giants....but in any case it has been fantastic and the party has been great at working together and murderfacing our enemies.  The main thing I have found with my character is that I am wanting to do more than just what I typically do and actually try some plotting and planning.  The process should be seamless (or else I'm totally fucked and my character will probably die) and as not as evil as possible.  Which actually the last part shouldn't be too hard because she is CG and that is the best way to defend doing what you do as long as you have a purpose/cause.  I will see how my plan goes and hopefully I don't die...as has been the trend in my past characters.

Well that has been the fantasy portion and now for the ever boring and dull reality of my actual life.  As per always, nothing super fantastic or absolutely stunning going on and in actuality if something were, I would probably shit my pants or die.  So here's to hoping things keep calm... I just started playing Dishonored a few days ago and really enjoy it.  It is one of those games that I find visually and thematically awesome, but the controls seem a bit overbearing.  Not so much that I can't figure them out, but there is just a lot to do and it seem counter-intuitive to normal controls.  For example, if you are wanting to back out of an action on most games you hit "B", on this it is "X".  There also just seems like a lot to take in with the controls and all the things you can pick up.  You gain powers along the way and when you upgrade/"activate" your powers you assign it to the D-pad and then cycle through them.  The problem is that they give you about 6 of them and clearly you don't have that many parts of the D-pad to use.  The other thing is it seems the game really promotes using your sword out of any of the weapons because finding ammunition is a bitch.  If you can't find the ammunition you need, then you have to buy it-which comes out to 20g a bolt!  That's robbery dude...I don't pay that much in D&D games and I have a shit ton more wealth in that.  For all the negatives of that, the actual game is pretty good.  You can stealth and then just murder the shit out of bitches by jumping down on them or coming up behind them.  You can always choke out people and then drag their bodies away to hide them.  Really if you have any of these desires IRL, you should play this and just get it all out through this.  That way you don't go to jail and shit.

This last bit is a tad random, but really my whole blog is random and as is my mind, so if I didn't include it, I wouldn't be true to myself and my craft. In addition to the FANTASTIC podcasts I have written about previously, I decided to take a leap and start listening to "Welcome to Night Vale" and have not been disappointed at all.  In fact I have been listening to it for the third time through and am enjoying it even more than the first time listening.  I feel this is really the first fandom that I have actually gotten in on.  I mean I kinda count BSG, but that is something I found after it was over-so I feel as though I sort of missed that one by a short bit.  Don't get me wrong though, I LOVE BSG a lot and probably more than most things, but this is almost as good.  The characters, the world, everything about it is fantastic.  It also brings up several good thoughts on the world, yourself, and all that other "feels" stuff.  It does have me thinking about doppelgangers though and wondering if the opposite to ourselves is really out there, somewhere.  Not necessarily someone that looks exactly like you but is opposite to you in every way, but just your opposing equal, the ying to your yang, the peanut butter to your jelly?  I would like to think it is and I hope that they are having all the fun I am not....

So a Twi'lek, a Superhero, and a Lich walk into a bar....

That is my lame attempt at a joke.  To be fair right about now my brain is on auto-pilot and I am glad I was clever enough to come up with that and not just title this post "Fucking D&D Yo!"...actually thinking about it, that would be a badass title.  Perhaps in the future.

So on to the meat of this potato post-the games I have developing right meow.  The Pathfinder game I had with my rogue died-not my rogue died, just the game was so derailed that we decided to quit and start a different game.  Apparently you can't just kill "innocent" guards (they did try to arrest us) and not fuck up everything and turn the part evil...societal norms am I right?!  Anyway, so we decided we would do a Marvel Heroic game and just be superheroes, because we are 12 and boys and because it's awesome SO GET OFF MY BACK!  Anyway after just finishing up Bioshock Infinite (I know I took FOREVER to finish it and pretty much pulled a stereo-typical gamer guy weekend and didn't move/shower/get dressed/leave the couch for 10 hrs to finish up-don't judge me) I decided that my character would be based on Elizabeth and use portals and such.  My only problem is that I feel vastly underpowered when compared to the other people in the group.  We have yet to play an actual game though, so we shall how well she plays out.

The next game I have coming up is a Star Wars game and like the Marvel game, I have yet to play anything like it all and it makes me nervous.  I am playing a Twi'lek Jedi/Jedi Knight, which is awesome and I think I will really enjoy playing her, I just hope that it is as much fun as I am thinking it will be to play.  Pretty much for her I just focused that her background is of her working with the scum of the universe basically being a bad ass Sith Hunter.  Her Jedi Master was killed and ever since then she has been seeking vengeance for his death-always teetering on the line.  Again, we shall see how this game goes as well.

 The thing that I realized when coming up with these characters is how comfortable I have become with Pathfinder/D&D.  I found myself getting so discouraged and frustrated making these characters because I am learning two new systems at the first time.  I mean I have only been gaming for a little over a year and are just now becoming familiar with Pathfinder rules and everything.  It went from making a character and everything in about 30 minutes to having to spend HOURS to get everything set and even now I still don't have all my gear or anything.

The last character that I have is a typical Pathfinder character and I LOVE her.  I mean I know get attached to my characters all the time, but she is really fun to play.  She is a Changeling Lich Alchemist-all of which are new things I have never played before, making each game very exciting.  So far we have fought giants, trolls, dodged flaming boulders, killed zombies and skeletons, and flown on an air elemental-powered airship.  The world is Eberron and it's steampunky and badass and awesome and I love it.

So that is what my gaming life has been up to recently.  Nothing too exciting, but once we get these games going, then I should have some good shit to write about.

Bros and D&D

I promise these two things are more related then you would think, so just follow me out with this one.  Tonight our gaming group have decided to embark on quite possibly what is going to be the greatest shit show and most disruptive game of D&D ever...a drunk quest.  We have a module we are being run through, 5th level characters, and pretty much straight Pathfinder.  For this venture I have decided on playing an Elf Bladebound Magus that is a total "bro" with a diminutive fey.  The visual of that picture can be harkened from the back recesses of your brain...I am an elf, fighting with a sword and I wear green; my fey friend is super tiny, rides on my shoulder and shouts at me the whole time.  If you don't get that reference, then I hope no pity is shown on your soul...but for the sake of not losing my whole 10 readers, it's Link from Zelda.  So here are the nitty gritty details of my character:  STR: 14, DEX: 20, CON: 12, INT: 20, WIS:10 (it's ALWAYS my dump stat), CHA: 12; for feats I have Weapon Finesse, Power Attack, Furious Focus, and Combat Casting.  Oh the best part though for my character?  Bladebound gives a weapon (longsword) that is pretty much a +2 enhancement for FREE....I will repeat that just in case you didn't understand, I am getting an 8,000 gold piece item for free. Win me?  DEFINITELY. Oh yeah and one of the most arguably best parts of the archetype?-the fact that I get to use one point from my arcane pool to increase that enchantment from a +2 (technically a +1 and then I added the agile property) to a +4....BOOM!  And I mean no big deal, but I get to sling spells through my sword also, so I will be Shocking Grasp-ing bitches all day for an additional 5d6 with my 1d8+13 weapon damage.  All I have to do is hit...which seems to be the hardest part.

So besides the stat aspects of my character, why am I so excited to play it?  Oh dear readers, my fey friend I wrote of earlier, is going to be my bro...and I don't mean my brother-I mean my bro.  We are going to fist bump, spend our money on liquor and cheap women, and do all that other awesome "bro" stuff.  This is the first time I have ever played a dude and I am pretty stoked.  Hopefully the drinking with the game will help get in character...I mean it can't hurt to be drunk at least!  Since my character is a bro, I have gifted him with a bro-tastic name:  Brodale, Son of Broseph of House Brorage, First of His Name, Mayor of Tittetowne.  So yeah....I am very much excite and I will have to post more on how he fairs in battle!

Nerdgasm

If my past weekend had to be described in one word, that would be it.  Utterly and definitely one of the best weekends I have had in terms of indulging my nerd-self.  It all started with Thursday traveling up to Chicago to join my dearest friends for Comic Con.  This was to be my first Comic Con experience and like with every first, I was nervous, excited, and scared for what would happen.  How would it feel?  Would it be a gentle nerd lover?  Would I be done in 30 seconds?  These were the questions that I found myself worrying about on the train ride up (well in between my sleeping and reading of A Dance with Dragons-since the "Wifi", using that term loosely because the shit they pandered onto us cannot be considered functioning wifi).  I also was concerned for my cosplay outfit...what if it wasn't good enough, or what if I looked terrible in it and everyone laughed at me!?  So once our safe arrival was assured and we found ourselves in our friend's lovely apartment, the plan began...

Friday morning came upon us like an eager lover, quick and entirely too forceful.  Still tired from my day of travels, I managed to put on a fairly nerdy outfit (Star Wars dress by Black Milk) and stuff down my tiredness with sheer excitement for the day.  After we broke our fast on some local fare, we took the longest L ride ever (like over an hour you guys...I went through Harlem for Christ's sake), and found ourselves at the doors of Comic Con.  As we all waited in line, I scoured the aisles looking at the cosplays; there were Batmen and Doctors a plenty, there were Stormtroopers galore, you want Deadpools?-I found 20, but I wanted more (I know not in the vein of the song, but I had to end somewhere).  It was so excited to see what was in store, then we were ushered into the convention hall and I literally think the nerd in me grew three sizes.  Artists everywhere, original artworks of my favourite superheros and cartoon characters, there were t-shirts, memorabilia, comics (duh), pretty much everything that encompasses the nerd lifestyle.  Truly amazing....so we spent the majority of the day there just hanging out and walking around and seeing everything.  I didn't really think that it could be as tiring as it was just looking at everything, but I think that it was mostly exhausting from all the excitement.  I am so happy we decided to spend most of our in Artists' Alley-which features some VERY talented people showing off their art.  I did find a fantastic artist, whose work I just fell in love with, and ended up buying an original of his.  I was not planning on spending that much, but I found the piece in the morning and could not stop thinking about it, seriously I think I started a love affair with this picture.  Anyway, we left comic con that day and pretty much just crashed as soon as we got back from being so tired.

Saturday was the day I had been really waiting for in Comic Con.  It was the day I was dressing up as Silk Spectre.  I was finally able to cosplay for the first time and I was very nervous about it.  But I put on my outfit, walked the five blocks to the L station (at least Sheila had dressed up with me as Harley, so I wasn't looking like a fool by myself) and we sat on the train again to continue our venture to the land of nerds.  Once we walked in, it was amazing!  People started asking Sheila and I for pictures...like no shit, I probably had over 50 people ask to take my picture on Saturday.  It is kinda an amazing boost to your confidence and also really great to know that people enjoy what you put hard work into.  So pretty much Saturday was just spent walking around, taking pictures, and making sure that we got everything in that we wanted to-which was basically just walking around taking pictures and shopping at booths.  On the way back from the con, I made some Asian fans-which thoroughly entertained me, and they were absolutely great.  It really made me excited for more cosplaying opportunities and I can't wait till next year when I can cosplay for the whole time and not just one day.

So that was my great weekend...seriously you guys, Comic Con is so amazing and is such a great experience that I am very glad I was able to enjoy.  I have to say that the one thing no one tells you about Comic Con, is that it does really smell like a sweaty BO producing boy...I don't know why it smelled like that (I mean besides the fact there were thousands of nerds packed into one building-honestly that was probably it), but for anyone who reads this that is thinking of going to a con,  please please shower beforehand.  Everyone will thank you for it and you will thank yourself knowing that smell isn't coming from you...

And here are some pictures for your enjoyment!

 

The Nerd Coma

My life for the past two weeks has been pretty quiet on the D&D front (except for one game that I will probably write about later), so I wanted to keep things rolling with just other nerdy things that I have been which have sucked up my time.

The first of which are my podcasts.  Now I have to admit that before, oh about two months ago, I probably hadn't listened to more than 10 minutes of a podcast.  I always figured they were boring and if I wanted to hear people talk, I would turn into an old person and listen to NPR.  So I was very much surprised when a friend told me about some pretty awesome podcasts that they thought I would enjoy.  The standout one has been my personal favourite and has now perhaps fallen into an obsessive love-"Drunks and Dragons".  This is a FANTASTIC D&D podcast (you can visit their website here) which focuses on a small group of friends who play 4th Ed and occasionally drink.  I cannot stress enough to everyone who reads this how funny these people are....(so funny in fact I end my sentences with prepositions).  The DM is amazing with the story and creating something that is so very familiar (The Dreadwing Episode), yet full of adventure and fun for the players.  I think the thing that I like most about it, besides being funny, is that the group has amazing chemistry together and really RP well-like good groups should *cough-my earlier post about having a shitty person in my gaming group-cough*.  He really focuses on the story and doesn't let the mechanics of the game stop the PCs from doing (within limit) what they envision.  And the humour is great...lots of dick jokes, cursing, and drinking-so obviously something I can very much get behind.

 Another podcast that I listen to is the "Random Encounters"-which is the same group (believe me you will see a trend with my favourite podcasts) and focuses on them playing a few other RP games like "Gamma World" and "Drunk Quest".  Again, really hilarious and lots of cursing.

My last podcast I listen to religiously is "Cast of Thrones" (website here-seriously go pledge something to keep them going!!) and also features almost the same group with the addition of a few others.  In the extremely small off chance that someone from any of these groups reads this, I promise I am not crazy nor a stalker...you guys just make some funny shit.  So "Cast of Thrones" is mostly just all about Game of Thrones, with a few small side conversations every once in a while, that recaps each episode.  It is really great to get different perspectives from the episodes and just helps me to fill the void since the show is in the off season. I think the the greatest thing of the podcast though is the episodes that are "Wine, Women, and Westeros".  In these episodes the focus is mostly on women's issues and how they are portrayed/their relationships/etc. on the show.  For the raging feminist in me, I kinda love these episodes the most for that dialogue of women in the shows.  I think it is something that so many shows don't really focus on building relationships for women aside from how they can further male plot (which really isn't that much better in GOT, but the women are at least more developed characters than in other shows).

So those are the first aspects of my nerd-induced coma lifestyle right now.  The second part and the one I am so very much excited for, is my cosplay!!  I have wanted to cosplay for a long time and have always been kind of a cosplay elitist when it comes to it.  Sure I will throw a shitty Halloween costume together (last year's was NOT an example of that though), but when it comes to going to a Con and dressing up in front of thousands of people-I do not want to look like utter dogshit in something I am trying to pass off as Catwoman or whatever.  So I have been devising a plan, looking over hundreds-nay thousands of cosplay pictures and figuring out what I want to do.  I finally settled on a character-Silk Spectre/Sally Jupiter from Watchmen, and bought all the fabric I needed in April.  I choose this figure because I knew that when I cosplayed, I didn't want to buy a costume.  Don't get me wrong there is nothing bad with buying a costume, but it just wasn't something that I wanted to do.  The costume is pretty basic in terms of sewing and so I figured it would be a great starter piece.  So I collected all the pieces....and they sat in my closet, unfinished.  I finally took them home two weeks ago to have my mom help me with making the pattern and everything.  Apparently I have a secret inner talent of throwing an idea for a pattern out there and just sketching it and it doesn't turn out to look like something a crackhead crafted.  Anyway, the dress was finished and then all I had to do was modify the gloves (sewing buttons along the outer portion), make some earrings (did that from buttons and it looks AMAZING!), and get my stockings.  I am so happy with the way it has turned out, but the real test will be this Saturday at the Wizard Con in Chicago when I put on that outfit that shows part of my hiney (I am wearing shorts though), walk out through the streets of Chicago, and into the Con where thousands of people will be.  Needless to say, I am terrified.  But my best friend is dressing up with me (she's going to be Harley Quinn...if you see us say hi!-although that's highly unlikely), so that helps some with the anxiety.

Okay well that is a pretty long post...I know I promised some discussion of my new game, but hey I have to leave somethings for my next post so all you fine people keep reading this right!?  Oh...I do want to say-go right now and listen to those podcasts, they are seriously great and if you think the tripe that I write is somewhat entertaining-they will make you lose your shit.  You can also follow them (and me! @Nika_Howard) on twitter at: @DnDPodcast and @CastofThrones.

Place Marker

As the title suggests...this is really just a place marker post.  I wanted to remind myself to write about podcasts, Comic Con, and cosplay.  So get excited because there will be a new and enthralling post soon....

Mistaken Idenities and New Beginnings

So last night we had our first game after my rogue had died.  I guess I should back up and tell you a little more about that character in the first place so you can have all the feels for my reactions in the game yesterday.

This was my second attempt at a Tiefling Rogue character (my first was in fact my very first character and suffered a horrible death a the hands of her party members...foreshadowing my friends, I should have known....and about 5 zombies that ripped her to pieces) and with this being my second attempt; I was a bit hesistant that she was going to die an awful terrible death after the second game (there's that foreshadowing again).  But I was sticking with it and going to play her the best I could and fully envelope all that a rogue could do.  I could sneak better than anyone else, I could steal in front of someone and they wouldn't even know, I could bluff my ass off-in short I was a damn good rogue.  Then came our second game and we chase a BBEG (Big Bad Evil Guy) into another plane where we get trapped.  We have this crazy horn and my character decides to blow it like the calling of the tribes to see what happens.  As luck would have it, it opened the portal again so we could get out.  The downside though was that she was immediately swooped up by a large flying gorilla; at which point her party members decided to shoot the shit out it, killing it and making both of them fall 80 ft to the ground.  Now just in case you don't have this mental picture clear, let me Bob Ross it for you...there is a man on a flying gorilla that is carrying my character.  So when we fall the order remains-my character, flying gorilla, BBEG-resulting in my character becoming the new special at IHOP.  Once this happens, I figure that my party is going to be awesome and pull me out from under a gorilla/ground sandwich and heal me. That would be where I was mistaken...instead they harvested me.  How do you harvest someone you might ask??  It's easy when you have a machine that sucks your soul out and turns you into a 0th level spell.  It was more or less like in Bioshock when you can harvest the Little Sisters with that giant syringe.  So yeah that's the end of my character...she's dead after the second game (told you about that foreshadowing didn't I?!).  LUCKILY-my DM is great and worked it out so that essentially my soul would be brought back and I could play the same character. but in a different body.  So kinda like Face Off-minus the terrifying aspect of Nicholas Cage.

Okay so now, it is our game last night and I am ready to hear about my new character.  I have hopes that I won't have a penis and will still be somewhat capable to be a good rogue-then I get my stats.  My DEX drops by 5 (which the main stat for rogues), my STR is upped by 5, and my CHA is upped by 1.  My initial reaction is a tirade of profanities because with my DEX dropping so much I lost three feats, 3 ranks in my skill points, and essentially became the worst rogue ever.  After some talking and working things out though, I was able to essentially only lose one feat (which I get to retrain) and will end up doing more damage.  It shouldn't be too bad-but we will see.  At least I can't complain about the fact that the party looted the shit out of my body and so I got all my old gear back.  The main problem now (and really the more fun problem) is having my character get adjusted to her new body.  I get to rp all that fun stuff out and really it is pretty fun when you think about a person who goes from being fairly average in size and everything, to being a giantess-or Lana from Archer essentially.  This is where I am now with her...she is getting to know her new self and I think that with some retraining in feats and with the new gear I bought, I should be pretty adept at more damage output and being a better rogue.  We shall see where our next few games takes her....

Call in CPS

Seriously though, if this blog was a child-it would be dead in the attic.  I neglect this thing so much, but really when you have three followers can you really blame me?!  I mean it isn't like I have a rousing audience which is revolting with everyday that passes and no new post is posted.  So yes, I am a horrible blog mother, which honestly is about in tandem with my natural inability to that hone that maternal feeling.  So what's new, what's going on in my life that is so busy that I can't update a blog?  Nothing my friends....nothing.  When I saw nothing though of course I mean the usual, my best friends moved away, mental breakdowns, and major life changes-you know the usual.  All in all though, I like to think that I have grown a lot over the past seven months; but sometimes it just doesn't feel that way.

The things that are the same and haven't changed have been my gaming-thank God.  It gives me an escape from everything that I have to worry about and provides me with entertainment as well so that's nice.  But yeah the downside to using gaming as an escape is when your character dies or you are faced with major life (*salutes* Major Life) changes and then you have to deal with everything that you are avoiding.  Again though then you are able to control a person that doesn't exist and doesn't have to deal with the repercussions of their actions in the real world-so you make them do what you are really wanting to do with your life.  Ahh projection...it's a great thing when you can do it on someone who isn't really affected by it.  In any case though, things are definitely getting better and I am dealing with things in much healthier ways-so yay for me....I guess.  It really comes down to having great friends that you can talk to and being able to put everything into perspective.

In any case, I am continuing with my painting and in accordance with that I have been playing different characters in different games.  My newest character that I start this Sunday is a changeling Lich-so we'll see how that goes (after the death of my past two characters).  I have also found a new love in twitter (follow me!!! @Nika_Howard) and have taken to livetweeting my games on Wednesday nights and I think I will do so on Sundays as well...really just depends on the feel of the game.  So my three followers, I hope you are satiated with this and hopefully I don't kill my blog for another seven months.

PS. I am dreadfully sorry for the rambling...after a bottle of wine, everything seems like a good thing to blog about!