Month: September 2015

On Extremely High-Value Targets

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A little while back, I mentioned the trouble our Shadowrun crew was getting into. Here’s how it went:

Erase Police Records

Through sheer blind luck, I managed to roll my way out of getting arrested by the police, and got hired by them instead. (I still got the data I wanted too, but we ended up not using it. Pity.) Turns out that being allowed (even paid) to walk in is a great way to make sure that certain records aren’t there when you leave. This was done largely as a favor to the Prodigies, the NPCs that Tam is writing about.
On Extremely High-Value Targets

Protect Shipment

As a side benefit to the above, we managed to get to the docks a little early, arriving in time to set up an ambush. Turns out they weren’t quite prepared to deal with a jet and a ninja. This one went way, way better than expected, as we managed to keep the gangs from running off with the shipment and making enough noise that the police showed up in large numbers, just as we were leaving…

Break Into Mansion

…which meant that there was no police detail at the mansion when we arrived. This is really what we came to Boston for in the first place: our investigations led to us looking for data on Project Alchera, and this was allegedly where it was located. As expected, we ran into quite possibly the most hated shadowrunner team in Boston, as we knew they’d been keeping tabs on us. Turns out the Prodigies had a grudge too, and Alice managed to wreck the place with a rather large fireball (at some cost to her own well-being). We did manage to clean up the entire opposing shadowrunner team, which means we’re leaving the Boston scene a little nicer than we found it. After some additional nonsense involving cutting communications and thinking we were just going to get the data and get out, we ran into Alchera II.
On Extremely High-Value Targets
Alchera II turned out to be a very cybered-up woman. She was in a tank and appeared unconscious, so our initial thought was to save her. Then she woke up, and everything went to hell. Lashing out with very odd powers, she blew up electronic devices in her immediate vicinity, while also attacking everything available on the Matrix, which included the technomancer of the Prodigies, Nick. Her downfall was her arrogance: she tried to do too many things at once and ended up taking counterattacks both in the matrix and her physical body. An EMP accompanied her death, so we may not have gotten all of the data, but we got enough to work from. Among other things, we found out that there were 8 more of these things.

Get the Magic Box

Unfortunately, we had to leave the formerly burning, soaking wet building in kind of a hurry, as our jet was being shot at on the way out. We’re currently lying low (or as low as it’s possible to get in a VTOL), so we’ll have to take care of this last job while on the road. There’s also the matter of getting paid for the jobs we did do…

On Extremely High-Value Targets

by

A little while back, I mentioned the trouble our Shadowrun crew was getting into. Here’s how it went:

Erase Police Records

Through sheer blind luck, I managed to roll my way out of getting arrested by the police, and got hired by them instead. (I still got the data I wanted too, but we ended up not using it. Pity.) Turns out that being allowed (even paid) to walk in is a great way to make sure that certain records aren’t there when you leave. This was done largely as a favor to the Prodigies, the NPCs that Tam is writing about.
On Extremely High-Value Targets

Protect Shipment

As a side benefit to the above, we managed to get to the docks a little early, arriving in time to set up an ambush. Turns out they weren’t quite prepared to deal with a jet and a ninja. This one went way, way better than expected, as we managed to keep the gangs from running off with the shipment and making enough noise that the police showed up in large numbers, just as we were leaving…

Break Into Mansion

…which meant that there was no police detail at the mansion when we arrived. This is really what we came to Boston for in the first place: our investigations led to us looking for data on Project Alchera, and this was allegedly where it was located. As expected, we ran into quite possibly the most hated shadowrunner team in Boston, as we knew they’d been keeping tabs on us. Turns out the Prodigies had a grudge too, and Alice managed to wreck the place with a rather large fireball (at some cost to her own well-being). We did manage to clean up the entire opposing shadowrunner team, which means we’re leaving the Boston scene a little nicer than we found it. After some additional nonsense involving cutting communications and thinking we were just going to get the data and get out, we ran into Alchera II.
On Extremely High-Value Targets
Alchera II turned out to be a very cybered-up woman. She was in a tank and appeared unconscious, so our initial thought was to save her. Then she woke up, and everything went to hell. Lashing out with very odd powers, she blew up electronic devices in her immediate vicinity, while also attacking everything available on the Matrix, which included the technomancer of the Prodigies, Nick. Her downfall was her arrogance: she tried to do too many things at once and ended up taking counterattacks both in the matrix and her physical body. An EMP accompanied her death, so we may not have gotten all of the data, but we got enough to work from. Among other things, we found out that there were 8 more of these things.

Get the Magic Box

Unfortunately, we had to leave the formerly burning, soaking wet building in kind of a hurry, as our jet was being shot at on the way out. We’re currently lying low (or as low as it’s possible to get in a VTOL), so we’ll have to take care of this last job while on the road. There’s also the matter of getting paid for the jobs we did do…

After The Rocky Starts

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(sorry about the lack of images today, something wonky on the site isn’t displaying them, looking into it)

I picked up SWTOR again over the weekend and started fiddling with it. It didn’t take long for me to remember both why I loved that game and why I stopped playing it.

 

Four years on, there’s a lot of new stuff to find in the game. In my group of friends, everyone has the MMO that we collectively left that they didn’t feel “done” with. For some people, it was FFXIV, for others, The Secret World, and people still trickle back into WoW for brief stints sometimes. For me, that game was SWTOR. I’d always wanted to play through the class stories and see all of them, but I’d never had the time to dedicate to all of that levelling. What got me to check out the game again was the ability to play through the main story of each class exclusively– you can level a character from 1-50 and possibly further simply by doing the main story quests.

It’s a great time, because it keeps the feeling of urgency and the thread of content solid. As separate pieces, the main class stories feel well-paced, although I still feel like some are significantly better than others, but without the need to do a lot of sidequest and flashpoint grinding to keep up in level, I can enjoy them rather than feeling disappointed when the next unlocked class quest doesn’t just blow me away with awesomeness. It also means that when I *do* decide to do a sidequest, it’s because I’m genuinely interested in the story, not because I feel like I have to do it regardless.

 

It’s gotten me to play classes that I never enjoyed before, and as I’ve relearned how to play, I’ve found myself hooked on the new content that’s been added in the last few years, and I’m looking forward to the upcoming (story-driven) expansion. What got me out of the game initially were rampant bugs in top-end raid content and some very nasty class imbalance issues that came to the fore in higher-tier content (Sage = best healer by a country mile circa January 2004). I’m no longer dealing with any of that. In fact, the spec I always wanted to play (Balance Shadow, now called Serenity) is entirely functional and awesome now.

SWTOR is the one MMO that I’ve played that’s let me fill out the player fantasy I’ve always loved. I can play a finesse-based tank with strong magic– it’s an archetype I’m never allowed to play but it works brilliantly in SWTOR. I’m a battlemage in a way that makes sense and isn’t just about a wizard in platemail, or a warrior with some fancy particle effects. It’s really satisfying and fun to play without feeling brokenly overpowered. I love it. There are still some design decisions in SWTOR that bug me, but that’s true of most games (especially MMOs), and at this point, given the way I’m playing the game, I can overlook them.

 

All told, it’s been a pretty fun ride. Over the weekend I got my Shadow to 57, a Smuggler to 10, a Jedi Knight to 13, a Sith Inquisitor to 23, a Sage to 10, an Agent to 13, and a Sith Warrior to 8. The idea of doing that when I played last would’ve been laughable. My one complaint is that there’s no way for me to remember which non-class stories are particularly awesome; I know there are sidequests that are awesome and fun, but I don’t know which they are so I’m mostly just not doing any of them unless I remember them specifically.

I should also comment that SWTOR, despite allowing you to log in without paying any money, is a subscription game. I don’t have a problem paying for a subscription (things cost money), but it is something I’m doing to get the full suite of features. It’s worth it to me for at least a little while, but it’s something to consider.

In any case, I’m enjoying my time with the game, and it’s nice to return to an MMO after having been gone for a while. There’s a bit of a uphill climb to get back in the swing of things, but it becomes familiar again surprisingly quickly, and a good (story) hook gets me motivated to put in the effort.

Mystara Monday: Module B3 – Palace of the Silver Princess

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This week we continue our look at the B series of adventure modules with the infamous module B3: Palace of the Silver Princess, published in 1981. There are actually two versions of this module although very few physical copies of the original version, which can be recognized by its orange cover, exist. A few years back though, Wizards of the Coast decided to make that original version freely available in digital form on their website. Wizards no longer hosts a copy but plenty of other locations on the internet do.

Mystara Monday: Module B3 - Palace of the Silver Princess

What I have here, however, is the second version, which credits both Tom Moldvay and Jean Wells as writers. Stories differ as to why the original edition was immediately recalled, but blame is usually placed on both the quality of the adventure itself, disturbing elements regarding a couple of the new monsters presented in the adventure, and 'questionable art'. One of those disturbing monsters is the decapus, shown above on the cover of the adventure. In the second version of the adventure it's simply a sort of forest dwelling tree-octopus. In the original version, however, it's capable of producing an illusion of itself as a beautiful woman being taunted by nine ugly men.

Whatever the reason for the recall, Tom Moldvay heavily rewrote the module to create the version that was eventually released. Where the original was a typical for the time delve into a castle simply to hunt treasure, the new version had the adventurers summoned shortly after the castle has fallen victim to some sort of curse so that they can try to break the curse and rescue the eponymous Silver Princess.

According to the backstory a giant ruby was recently found by dwarves while mining, and they presented it to the princess as a gift. Shortly thereafter, the entire palace was imprisioned within a ruby glow, and the valley over which the princess ruled was struck with disease and decay. The players are tasked with entering the palace and finding a way to save the kingdom. The ruby, it turns out, is linked to an evil extradimensional being called Arik and is being used by him to forge a passage between dimensions. Arik's power has driven some of the palace's residents insane, attracted many monsters, and imprisoned the princess within the ruby.

The adventure itself is presented in three parts. The first is a 'programmed adventure' intended to introduce new dungeon masters and players to the game. It's basically a choose your own adventure covering the first few rooms of the palace. Past that, the module shifts to a more typical room by room breakdown of a two level dungeon. Like a lot of early dungeon crawls, the monsters and rooms seem kind of random, with little connecting one room to the next. White apes in the jail cells? Three foot long cobra in the linen closet? Why? Who knows? Don't question it, just kill them and take the treasure they're guarding.

Mystara Monday: Module B3 - Palace of the Silver Princess
Also, there's a guy named Travis. He's a real jerk.
That said, there are some memorable rooms and encounters like a bathroom with magic gems to fill the bathtub, a garden overgrown with carnivorous plants, and a pair of thieves who got caught in the palace when the curse befell it and just want to steal what they can and get out. The backstory of the module also alludes to a heroic order of dragon riding knights that could be used in further adventures or as a group the party might attempt to ally with or join in the future.

Palace of the Silver Princess is a step forward in the evolution of the D&D adventure module; it provides a reason beyond pure greed for the player characters to be adventuring and presents a goal beyond simply killing all the monsters and taking their loot. We've still got a ways to go before we see modules that truly tell a story though. That said, at the age of 10 I thought it was pretty great. It was probably my second favorite of the B modules, behind Rahasia.

Next week we continue with a look at module B4: The Lost City. Join me for drug addled mask wearing pyramid dwellers, an evil cthulhoid monstrosity, and invisible snakes.