Quick hits: wots all this then?

Since I have yet to construct a light box despite owning tracing paper, I haven't taken pictures of the stuff I've been diligently working on. So, its time for another bunch of (extremely) quick hits as a lead in into some RPG discussion.

1) Tyranid FAQ Blues - I'm really tired of hearing about how the FAQ nerfed everything to hell.  Yes, we all get it the Mycetic Spore stuff rulings are complete ass.  As for the hive commander issue, I don't see why people are so upset - the writing was on the wall when the IG FAQ came out.  So, do yourself a favor next time and just go ahead and automatically assume that reserve bonuses wont stack unless explicitly stated.

pictured: Tyranid players

2) Plague Bearer Progress - I've got 15 done (in three color schemes, no less) all the way to varnishing.  I've got another 5 on the table that should be done this weekend.  Progress has been good for the most part with the exception that one of my color scheme gradients had too much distance between shades and ended up needing a lot more work than anticipated.


3)  New Fire Prism Kit - I broke one of these out of the back-log to start getting it ready for painting.  It should prove to be a good change of pace from the daemons and ensure that the Eldar project stays alive.  Mostly, I just wanted to mention how cool the new kit is.  The turret is pretty ingenious in its construction and kick-ass looking.  Function + form.  Truly, a well designed upgrade.


4)  RPG Content - As stated, I'm pretty excited about this.  I haven't quite figured out what to do with the re-telling of the various sessions in order to avoid them being the droning boredom that RPG accounts can devolve into.  I also plan on notifying UglyRaincoat and VanMetal so I can get them in on the comments section.

With that...

------[Bonus RPG Content]------

So beyond knowing that my buddies and I started a campaign, you don't know much.  I think a big part of getting to know a campaign and the characters in it is getting to know a little about the group of people playing.  If you actually want to get a sense of how the game 'feels' and where the energy is coming from, you need to know more than what you get out of a boring re-telling of a story that you're audience has no context for outside of game mechanics and source books.

I think I'll start that process off by first talking about the real-life relationships of the players involved - without going into excruciating detail.  First up, and this is key, the four of us (Lauby, Dethtron, UglyRaincoat and VanMetal) are all very good friends.  Have been for years - over a decade in many cases.  That tends to weigh pretty heavily on the whole group dynamic.  Many of the social boundries and expectations have already been established well in advance.  Its nice and easy to slip back into our gaming patterns since no new relationships are forming. This is the kind of thing that allows for some really great moments of character interaction as we're aren't also trying to learn how to interact with each other as real people.  It also means that parts of the game move very fast as we have a kind of shared RPG language that streamlines the game.  On the other hand, it means we shoot the shit a lot before we actually role some dice and that the occasional disastrous things is taken for granted - usually to hilarious consequences.

Good luck getting this reference.

That bit about expectations is super-duper important.  An campaign can quickly be destroyed if the group doesn't mesh.  And its not just expectations about the game itself - combat frequency, difficulty, open-endedness, setting and the like.  It extends to the environment you play in as well... how much table talk is accepted (a lot, for us), how much beer is it OK to consume in a session (more than is healthy) and how much of an intrusion of real-life is acceptable (also a lot).

I've seen a ton of groups disintegrate because there was too much of a disconnect between two parts of the group.  Usually, between the game master and the players.  But I've also seen issues between veteran-players and new players as well as the amazing capacity one stranger in the group has to derail things.  The bummer is, that no matter how much of this can be avoided with good communication, sometimes you just can't fix these things.  Especially if its a personality problem.

Luckily for us, we had most of this nailed down.  I think next time I'll hit you all up with what we were aiming for in this campaign.  Til next time!