Current events

This page is for discussion of stuff related to the game coming up this week, no matter when that actually is. For instance, we can all assume Nate isnt coming for some lame reason and that Ed is sick of pizza and is bringing teriyaki or some other crap. They can post something here if that happens to be untrue.

Schedule

Date...........game................Location..........(Advanced attendance)
8/29/08......OAAAA...........BnD...............Matt gone
9/5/08.......OAAAA...........BnK...............Brandon gone (HONEYMOON!)
9/13/08 SATURDAY 6pm......Super Heroes?.....Gabe's..........Ben Gone, Brandon gone
9/19/08......Super Heroes.....BnK..........
9/26/08......OAAAA.....BnK..........Matt here!
10/3/08......OAAAA.............BnK..........Matt and Brandon gone
10/10/08.....OAAAA.............BnK..........
10/17/08.....OAAAA.............BnK..........Dieter gone to Canada
10/24/08.....Seems to be cancelled..................BnK..........Ed gone, Brandon likely gone, Matt gone
10/31/08 ....CANCELLED.......BnK..........Ed gone, Matt gone, Brandon gone
11/07/08.....Supers..........BnK..........Dieter probably gone
11/14/08.....Supers..........BnK..........
11/21/08.....Supers (?)..........BnK..........
11/28/08.....Likely CANCELLED (Thanksgiving)
12/05/08.....OAAAA...........[BnK]............

BEN: ok, it sounds like we are going OAAAA this week. Given that, the next FOUR sessions will be at Matt's disposal for Supers, so that we keep things fair and balanced (like your mother and a sperm whale, for instance). That does NOT include the 31st weekend, which as far as I can tell is going to be a CANCEL. We can discuss in the coming weeks (based largely on Matt and the material he has ready) if we want to switch back to OAAAA before December.

Ranting and raving or other random comments

KIM: worth a chuckle [1]

--Gdaze-- Holy crap, that is long.

KIM: I should have forewarned, more appropriate for lunch break, rather than a peek while the boss isn't looking. =P

Weekly Magic Whining/Complaining/Smack Talking

Shards of Alara

--Brandon 13:17, 18 October 2008 (MST) Ed, I found your new favorite card (for the protection deck, at least): Glamerdye. It's your cheesy color changer w/ retrace. Ouch.

Edmiao i've seen that one. yeah. protection deck did ok last night, might let it stick around a little while longer.

--Gdaze -- Whoa... the protection deck did pretty well while the Fire Giant deck didn't... INSANITY!

--Gdaze 12:38, 20 October 2008 (MST) Alright guys, Ed suggested doing some kind of themed decks, and I'd like to see this as well. Jaosn has metioned he did it in the past with friends and was quite fun. Maybe like no spells over 3 mana, stuff like that. Lets think some up and choose a few, sound cool?

Some I've thought of but just not how to do them exactly...

Settlers of Catan.

D&D - Fantasy adventure (something like, you have to have 2 or 3 legendary humniod races and equipment for them to get, I dunno, kinda hard to do maybe)

Peck your eyes out: Can only use birds.

Etc, etc. I think we should each choose different ones to battle or a concept that anyone can do. Elemental, elf, kinship crap like that are the themes I think we should avoid.

Edmiao my theme: kick you in the nuts. not sure how many cards i can find with that theme. maybe we should make themed decks on making the worst deck and then others play it, that sounded fun

--Gdaze -- That sounds good, the 2nd one, ass. As long as it is win-able.

--Gdaze -- Anyone wanna get together for some magic during the week this week? Say Wed.? Be great if we could get enough to do 2-headed giant.

Edmiao sorry, can't. jason had some rules for his version, we can just make up rules. Maybe 60 cards, each card must be playable. Jason had five colors in his rules, i think maybe limit it to 2 colors per deck might be more fun to play rather than being mana screwed all the time. probably must have at least 20? creatures and land in the range of 20-24. Should Urza lands be excluded? I put 8 mines and 8 towers in but no power plants. Players gets one point for winning and one point for his deck losing.

--Brandon 17:35, 20 October 2008 (MST) I like the "worst deck" idea. Another thought would be a "Younger Dragon Highlander" game (see here for Elder Dragon Highlander rules). Keep the general and singleton ideas, along with the color-limiting (i.e., no colors allowed that aren't represented on the general card), but make the deck size smaller (60 or 45, maybe). Maybe also lower the life total.

EDIT: We should think a bit about the mana base requirements for the "worst deck" games. As Ed points out above, there are some ways to really screw a deck even if "each card must be playable". For example, a "black-green" deck with 23 forests, 1 swamp, 20 black creatures (all with only a single B, so they are "playable"), and 16 black spells would be no fun at all for anyone.

--Brandon 17:45, 20 October 2008 (MST) Alright, Ed, so you knew my last possible inclusion to your protection deck. What about this one?

Edmiao i like the elder dragon thing. sounds neat. but should we try the worst deck thing first?

JASON: Here is how we did bad deck day: 24 colored mana producing land (minimum 4 of any color that has cards). Minimum 20 power of creatures. Every card must be castable. No more than one of anything except basic land.

Edmiao Ceaseless Searblades gets +1/+0 whenever you play an activated ability of an elemental. Smokebraider has Tap: add 2 mana to your mana pool. Is tapping smokebraider an activated ability, a mana ability or both? does it trigger Ceaseless searblades?

406.1 A mana ability is either
(a) an activated ability that could put mana into a player's mana pool when it resolves or
(b) a triggered ability that triggers from a mana ability and could produce additional mana. A mana ability can generate other effects at the same time it produces mana.

which suggests that smokebraider has an activated ability. but...

406.4 A mana ability can be activated or triggered. Mana abilities are played and resolved like other abilities, but they don't go on the stack, so they can't be countered or responded to. See rule 411, "Playing Mana Abilities," and rule 408.2, "Actions That Don't Use the Stack."

mana abilities don't go into the stack. but they do resolve. Opinions on rulesmongering?

--Brandon 22:21, 21 October 2008 (MST) Smokebraider's ability is definitely an activated ability. Looking for the colon is a good rule of thumb, and I just found a source that presented Llanowar Elves as having a paradigmatic activated ability. So, it's an activated mana ability, and I see no reason why that wouldn't trigger Ceaseless Searblades.

On another Magic-related note, I can probably get away to play some Magic this Friday, as long as I don't end up hanging out for more than a couple of hours. Is anyone else game? I'd be up for normal Magic, or the "bad deck" game above.

--Gdaze -- Holy crap, yeah, I'm with you two on this, it IS an activated ability. Nasty kinship. I could maybe do some magic on Friday... or tomorrow.

--Gdaze -- So hey people, sound off, this on or what? Who can? Who wants to? Also if I did do it Friday I'd have to leave at around 7ish, so early start better, maybe not even worth it? Tomorrow would work really well.

--Brandon 16:40, 22 October 2008 (MST) I'm down for Friday, and could conceivably meet earlier than normal. I cannot meet tomorrow (Thursday)

--Matts I can play tonight, but I'm guessing that's not IN THE CARDS.

Edmiao neither for me.

--Gdaze -- Everyone sucks. And I'm out Friday as well now. Bleh.

BEN: 3-1 at the draft! woot! last game, it was 1-1, and he attacks. I block with puppet conjurer, make a token, and block one other dude: his hissing iguanar reduces me to one life, and next turn, I attack in the air and kill him. Glorious! And Brandon and I scored some killer rares! What sucked was that Brandon and I had to play each other in the first round...

JASON: Maybe I am reading this wrong, but if not you may have done something illegal. No fast effects can be played during the declare blocking phase. So, for instance, if the puppet conjurer dude creates a token and you wish to use that to block, it wont work. All blocking declarations are simultaneous. So the puppet conjurer blocks, you cannot respond to declaring him as blocking with producing a creature and also blocking with it. You can certainly create the token before damage is dealt, but it cant block this turn.

BEN: oops. Well, my bad. Brandon raised the same point, so with both of you saying that, I guess it wasn't possible. Guess I should have been 2-2.

--Brandon 03:09, 26 October 2008 (MST) Whatever, it's the other guy's fault for not catching it, too. I mean, there was a judge in the room. The only reason I knew it didn't work is that I tried the same thing earlier, but had the other guy point out that it was illegal. 3-1 is good, and 2-2 is damn good compared to my 0-2 (I'm still kicking myself about that first game, which I probably should've won).

Next step in Super Heroes

Edmiao I wonder if the suveilance cameras caught cortez and the battle on tape, could be good PR sort of the Guardians most wanted list.

--Gdaze 02:29, 21 September 2008 (MST) Yeah... except then we went to the park and fought the mutant kid... had to knock out a bunch of teens with Ash Berry's spores... and um... he got away...

--Brandon 12:37, 21 September 2008 (MST) I just want to say that that last battle had a lot of great moments. Silver Snake being thrown into the air and then transforming and swinging back down in mid air; Ashbury flying above the crowd of teenagers and releasing pollen everywhere; Elemental taunting Zeus, and then not budging when the counterattack came; Brimstone walking with Silver Snake as armor, dragging a line of fire through the air, and then teleporting inside of Zeus's shield. Good times, all.

Edmiao Viho, in my absence, will work on relations with the mayor. his goal will be to get some police officers into Venture to guard super prisoners, far better than the Venture Ind rent a cop and recptionist. And to expedite construction of the supers prison that we spoke of. Also, he will be thinking about branding, and will have his PR guy (Bob Seebo) work in conjunction with a hired design firm to make a logo for the guardians and coordinate costume colors (if the other players are down with that), something stylish. He'll buy the costumes for all and paint his suits to match. In addition, Sebo and design team will work on a possible advertising campaign. billboards or something: "Guardians of NY! we're great!". Maybe Viho will go on some sympathetic talk shows. He will also call up the Juice's ex wife and invite her to have her son apply for the student internship at Venture. Same for that nerd boy who gave those bad hoods his library access.

Next step in Of Amor, Armor, and Alchemy

Current OAAAA XP: 75 base + 107 XP

Stuff we want to buy:

Horses for all plus one or two as pack animals
Winter clothing and sleeping rolls
climbing gear and rope
torches and lanterns
rations
dragon repellent
picks, shovel, other digging equipment to clear cave ins? dynamite?
Ketchup (if you can't beat 'em . . .)
carrier pigeons

BEN: Well, for only three characters to go head to head with Sky was quite something. But the characters played smart and kept their actions tight and well coordinated, and victory was theirs. I'd just like to commend a few highlights, and leave it to the players to provide the summary to their fellow party members:
1.) Aefra taking down Sky with a thrown daenerys dagger...right after the MT Tithe got taken down with a 68 stun hit to the head.
2.) Aetan heaving several goblins into the abyss...or just bashing them into goblin pulp with his hammer and sending the others running in terror.
3.) Aetan diving off a bridge (!), into the abyss, after an unconscious and falling Tithe, catching him in midair with a critical success dex roll, to completely save the situation.
4.) Aefra making a cool illusory wedding band as for Grendel, to seal her marriage to him.
5.) Aetan declaring himself a vassal of Grendel.
6.) Matt prebuying luck to allow him to reroll the second of two 17 failures for a 15- roll, as an instant effect.
7.) Tithe getting dog piled by goblins and fighting his way out.

On account of numbers 1, 3, 4, and 5, but especially #3, the entire group (including Dieter, Gabe, and Nate) are awarded 1 bonus XP.
Additionally: Matt and Ed: I think that your purchased disadvantages came into play last session, so you each get the bonus from that as well.

--Gdaze -- Jeez, seems the group got a hard-on for Grendel. So is the group ever going to run into people we don't bow down and kiss their ass sometimes?

Edmiao I'm going out on a limb here.... no?

BEN: have you met anyone you particularly didn't like where it would have been beneficial to be bellicose towards them? Other than the establishment back on Caminus? Or the knight of flowers? Or the ninja orc?

--Brandon 11:18, 20 October 2008 (MST) I was going to say, though Ben has partially stolen my thunder, that I think we have established a pretty good balance between ass-kissing and ass-kicking:

Some members of Caminus establishment: kissed
Other members of said establishment: tricked/kicked
Bandits: kicked
Gwyndolin: kissed
Dragon: neither (we just ran and ran)
Ape: kicked
Knight of Flowers: kicked
Folks in Carthay: intermittent kissing
Wood Elves: stayed respectfully aloof
Ninja Orc: got kicked, then kicked
Grendel: kissed (literally)
Dragon (second time): I predict a prodigious amount of ass-kissing here

--Gdaze -- Yeah, but didn't this guy threaten us/Aefra to marry him? (Is this guy the goblin king or is that someone else?, also Fantus just doesn't like his friends being forced to do things they won't want.)

BEN: he didn't actually threaten the group at all. He had an attitude similar to the knight of flowers, really (kind of a lot of similarities, now that I think about it), except that he never hurt any member of the group (he did have the stone grab tithe's head, but it didn't hurt him...). He made requests of the group, and when they expressed reservations about the marrying thing, he got upset, explained why he was upset (the faeries chased him out as a child because he was ugly, and it nearly killed him several times), and offered the group the opportunity to just go along their merry way without doing any of his tasks, but that he would then take that as an indicator that even the best among the fae (ie, Aefra and Aetan) were nothing more than self serving, callous beings who would never respect him, and that this conclusion would lead him to join the wood elves in their war against the fae.

Edmiao yeah, so he was pretty nice about the whole thing, except for the threat of race war on your kind forevermore.

BEN: which really, when you think about it, ain't no thang. Sounds like a pretty reasonable guy, doesn't he?

Edmiao that's what i said, glad to be married to him

--Gdaze -- Totally, like a cute Hitler. I wish someone would have said "Well maybe you shouldn't have been so ugly." Although, awesome rebellion by Aefra "Look who I married dad!"

--Brandon 14:52, 20 October 2008 (MST) Ummmm, I know history is written by the victors and all, but since when is being hit hard enough to be knocked unconscious, begin bleeding to death, and be knocked off of a bridge so as to fall to one's death (barring miraculous salvation at the hands of a lucky, impulsive, clever troll) considered "not being hurt?"

--Gdaze -- How dare you speak ill of Aefra's husband and the one who hold's Aten's leash. I mean, you got better right?

--Brandon 15:08, 20 October 2008 (MST) Lolz. Yeah, if by "got better" you mean that I was healed by the smooth and silky touch of Galen's hands. Luckily, he picked just that moment to stop running repeatedly into the wall and actually do something productive.

BEN: good point. I guess he did hurt somebody. Just not somebody important. Besides, you were about to kill one more of his precious goblins (who continued to kill one another, on accident, while he was hanging around).