New Year's Resolutions - Goals for 2011

Yesterday, I took a look back at 2010 and saw how far this sight has come. It has really gone a lot further than I ever imagined. I am really happy about that. I also have grown up a lot over the past year (having a kid and getting married does that to a guy). So, I thought I should take a minute to lay out my goals for this site, and for myself for 2011. It will be great to have all these goals out there, so that next year, in 2011 when I take a look back, I can see how many of these goals I have accomplished.

Well, I guess my personal goals should come first, since they are simple, and I bet a lot of people share them with me
So...
Personal Goals List!
Lose some weight. I used to play varsity soccer and throw a football around once in a while! What happened to me?! I have definitely put on a few pounds since high school and I blew past the freshman fifteen in college during my first semester. I am pretty far off of my ideal weight, but I think I could probably get that back in line pretty quickly. One of my dreams would be to run a Marathon by the time I turn 25 (Yea, I am young... I think this has been mentioned in the past) and run a Triathlon by the time I turn 30. My wife really want to lose all her baby weight too, so this site might end up turning into the tales of the Dieting DM in the near future... (haha).
Get Better at Japanese. I speak pretty good Japanese. My wife really helps with that. Adding in the fact that living in Japan forces me to use it regularly, I guess it all adds up to be a real help. So, I would really like to improve my Japanese through some type of measurable means. I think learning about 2000 Kanji and passing the 2nd Level JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) by December 2011, seems like a pretty good goal for where I am at now.
Have Fun with My Kid. My son is pretty awesome. He is pretty much the cutest, funnest thing around. Having fun with him as he gets older seems to be a pretty good goal to me.

I guess I keep it simple when it comes to personal new years resolutions. Some of them get accomplished, some don't. Here are my resolutions for the blog in 2011.

Hit 1000 Posts. That is right. I am aiming pretty high. As of today, there are over 250 posts on this site, something that I am pretty proud of. I guess this is really turning into my gamer diary more than anything else. I really want to keep up this posting schedule and hit 1000 posts by January 1st 2011, while maintaining the same level of length and quality that I have had up until now.
Make My First Dollar in the RPG Industry. That is right. I want to earn a dollar in the RPG industry. It could be doing freelance stuff, art, or selling my own adventures or games, but I would love to make a Dollar doing what I love to do (not from my family) so that I can finally tell my wife that I have a hobby that actually makes money, not just spends money ( lol ).
Take Ninja Minotaur Publishing Live. I have been toying with the idea of making an e-book Publishing company, to publish free or low Priced Indie Games and Game Supplements for a while now. I would love to make that dream a reality.

but... the big one and the hard one...
Get my first Freelance Job. I would really, really like to write something this year for somebody else. Preferably, I would also love to get paid to do that. I don't have any lofty goals of becoming a full time Freelancer, but I would love to publish a module, or an article, and get paid for my effort.

What do you think? We could take bets in the comments section as to which of these will come true. What are your resolutions for 2011? Do you share anything that is on my list?

2010 Year End Review

As this is the last day of the year, I thought I should take some time out to evaluate how things have gone in 2010 and to comment on how things have been going.

It has been a pretty good year for me, I must admit. I had a son, graduated from college, got a Job teaching English at a high school in Japan, through the JET Program. I got Honors in Asian Studies with my Thesis studying Mecha and Identity in Anime (a first for my university). All in all, I would say my personal life has been going pretty well this year. Although I have probably fought a little too much with my wife, and am seriously lacking in free time, I can easily say that I am proud with how 2010 has turned out.

Turning now to the gaming side of things. 2010 was a bit of a mixed year I guess. I took a long time off from the hobby, starting when I got married near the middle of 2009 and I didn't really even look at a Role Playing Book until the Fall of 2010 when I started working again. But, these last several months have been very good to me and this here blog.

I am really happy to say that in 2010, the Dump Stat has almost achieved 250 posts. I have gone from 0 to 15 followers. I have gotten over 10,000 page views in the last 4 months.

I have done 1 Official Product Review - Brother Ptolemy & The Hidden Kingdom, by Nevermet Press, and I am in the middle of my second - Amethyst: Foundations, by Goodman Games and Dias Ex Machina.

Stargazer's world, a site where I occasionally post as a member of the Stargazer team, earned several honors this year, including an award by RPG Blog II. I also got recognized a little bit for my work on XDMC 23 - "Create a Legendary Organization" (a contest run on the WotC forums). Stuffer Shack liked one of my NPC's enough to award me the Silver Medal in their Create an NPC Contest as well.

Personally, I am also very proud of the work that I have done on my Homebrew setting, which is currently nicknamed "The Mad Lands". I am also really happy with all the work that I have accomplished on my City Builder: Architects Board Game/RPG. I wish that I could have finished it before the New Year, but life is pretty busy.

I guess, all in all, The Dump Stat has had a pretty good year. I am glad that I brought the blog back strong after my hiatus and that some people seem to be reading I get a lot more comments now than I used to which makes me really, really happy! :)

But if I am going to look back, I guess I also need to look forward, but I think that can wait until tomorrow. I have celebrating to do!!

Thanks for a great year and Thank you for constantly supporting and reading all the wild gaming stuff that I put out there!

Cheers!! Have a Happy New Year!!

Greg

What will you be doing on X-mas eve?

So, what will you be doing on Christmas Eve? Will you be curled up next to the fire waiting for Santa to come down the Chimney? Will you be drunk off the overly-spiked Eggnog? Will you be eating cookies until you slip into a food coma? Will you be gaming?

I will be catching a flight headed back towards the US from Narita airport on Christmas Eve, but I will arrive there the same day at 9 AM. Going back in time always fascinates me. When I land, it will technically be Christmas in Japan, but I will get another entire day of anticipation before the big day comes.

I will be spending the majority of the 9 hour flight catching up on the wonderful plethora of RPG Podcasts that I have filling my iPod. I will also, without a doubt, probably be building myself some Traveller characters on the plane because 9 hours is a long time and I am pretty sure that I can roll 2d6 on my seats folding tray table (except during take-off and landing of course). But once I get to Canada, I have a whole bunch of RPG Products waiting for me and I plan to spend at least a little bit of my winter holiday pouring over their contents and writing about my findings.

So, Merry Christmas Eve! Or Happy Holidays if you prefer! No silly game based content this holiday. Sorry!!

The Astral Black Market Firesale- a D&D 4e Event

So, Black Friday has come again this year. I am really sad that I won’t be in the States to enjoy it. I have fairly religiously been a Black Friday shopper since high school; I used to line up at circuit city and sell coffee at 3 am. This was always a nice way to earn a few dollars to be put towards PS2 games. Last year, I lined up from 6 pm the night before in order to be one of the first people inside Best Buy in order to pick up a PS3, games, DVD’s, and lots of other goodies.
Since I won’t be enjoying these sales this year, I thought I might put a little something together for all of you D&D playing bargain hunters. This event is designed for 4e D&D, but with a little work, you could easily adopt it into other games.

*****

The Astral Black Market Fire Sale –
“Everything an Adventurer didn’t know he needed and more!”

Lore
The Astral Black Market Fire Sale is rumored to have been started several hundred years ago. The sale is believed to have originally been started by a group of powerful and very successful adventurers who travelled the planes in search of treasure and found much, too much of it. In order to get rid of all their excess magical items, they put together a massive caravan of astral ships which they enchanted for travel to and from the astral plane to the material plane. Now, the original founders of the sale have long since stopped selling their goods, but others joined in and expanded the operation. It has now become a yearly even for selling off stock of old weapons, excess armor, and miscellaneous magical items ranging from the strange to just down right useless.

The Astral Black Market Fire Sale is an event which happens once a year. The location of the sale each year changes, but it always shows up somewhere highly populated, and densely packed with warriors, wizards, and other powerful people in search of powerful new toys. However, not only does the sale pedal magical wares, it also draws huge numbers of peasants because of the giveaways. During the fire sale, each of the dozens of merchants involved hands out free items to the general public for coming to see what is for sale. These items are usually not more valuable than a few silver pieces, but sometimes a vendor may give out something that is as valuable as a few GP. These items range from candles and cookware to small farm animals and rope. They could be just about anything. It is always a big surprise what will come up.

Part I – Getting what is on your shopping List
Of course, the biggest draw for the fire sale is the chance to pick up magic items. However, getting to the good stuff is not very easy. There are a lot of people buying a lot of stuff at this gathering. It takes some serious skills to get what one really wants.

The Wish List –
Before doing the fire sale event, each player must put together a wish list of 10 items that they want to buy. These items should be numbered from 1-10 with 10 being the item the player wants the most. The player cannot write the same item multiple times. The DM will use this list in determining what the player’s will have access to during the event.

The Fire Sale is a moderate difficulty skill challenge requiring 5 success before 3 failures. Every time a player succeeds on a skill check, he or she moves one step closer to getting all the items on his list. Whenever a player gets a success, up to 4 success, he or she earns 1 point. If the player succeeds on the skill challenge, he or she gets an additional 1 point. When the skill challenge ends, the DM makes a d10 roll against the player’s wish list for every 2 points the player earned during the skill challenge to see what items he or she was able to obtain.

Players can use the following skills during the Skill challenge.
Athletics – to push and shove through the throngs of people.
Acrobatics – to jump and cartwheel above the crowd.
Stealth – to slip unnoticed through the lines and make your way to the front.
Arcana – to sense where the really good magic items are being stored.
Diplomacy – to convince someone to give you the item you want.
Intimidate – when you want it no matter what
Bluff – to lie your way into the best deals around.

All the DC’s of the above skills should begin as medium, but pulling the same trick multiple times gets harder and harder. Each time a player makes the same skill check again, increase the DC needed to succeed by 2.

Part II – What you didn’t know you needed
Although getting what is on your wish list is priority #1 during the skill challenge portion of the Fire Sale, this event also offers a plethora of other, less important magical gear, which could be a fun addition to an armory.

The merchants offer a variety of interesting items and weapons at a discount.
Non-Magical Weapon and Armor are 50% off.
Basic Adventuring gear, non-magical, is 75% off.
Alchemical items/consumables are 25% off.
Random items costing less than 5 gp are given away for free.
Magical Weapons and Armor are 10% off.
Useful Magical Items are 15% off.
Semi-useful magical items are 20% off.
Ok magical items are 25% off.
Basically junk magic items are 50% off.

Haggling at the Fire sale is encouraged, however it is very difficult. Players can use Diplomacy, Intimidate, or Bluff (DC – Hard) to get an additional 5% off of an item each time they make a purchase, however, failing on Intimidate of Bluff causes the price to increase by 5%. Each time a player uses the same skill, the DC of the check increases by 2.

This event provides a great opportunity for DM’s to put together a big list of random magic items, which aren’t really something a player would want or particularly use, but might provide an interesting flavorful addition to his or her character. The decreased price just might get the player to drop some gold on something he or she didn’t want.

Part III – Not knowing is half the fun
Several of the merchants offer grab bags of various levels. These are items which are covered and concealed. No skill checks are allowed to be used when purchasing these items.

The Grab Bags are generated by random D10 rolls when the player buys the item. Grab bags come in two varieties, weapon grab bags and armor grab bags. Each grab bag is guaranteed to have either a magical weapon or a magic suit of armor inside. Each vendor offers a grab bag of level equal to the average level of the player’s in the group. In other words, if the players are all level 10, the vendors sell a level 10 grab bag. The grab bag costs the same as an item of the player’s level ,but may or may not have that level of item inside. Inside the grab bag is a random selection of items, roll on the following charts to see what is inside.

Chart 1 – roll on this 1 time.
D10
1 A random weapon/armor of player level -4
2. A random weapon/armor of player level -3
3 A random weapon/armor of player level -3
4. A random weapon/armor of player level -2
5. A random weapon/armor of player level -2
6. A random weapon/armor of player level -1
7. A random weapon/armor of player level -1
8. A random weapon/armor of player level
9. A random weapon/armor of player level
10. A random weapon/armor of player level +1

The grab bag also comes with several other items, roll on the following chart to determine how many items and of what levels they are before choosing what items to pick.

Chart 2 – roll on this 1 time
D10
1. 1 magic item of player level – 5
2. 1 magic items of player level -4
3. 1 magic item of player level -3
4. 1 magic item of player level -2
5. 1 magic item of player level -1
6. 1 magic item of player level -1 and one magic item of player level -5
7. 1 magic item of player level -1 and one magic item of player level -4
8. 1 magic item of player level -1 and one magic item of player level -3
9. 1 magic item of player level -1 and one magic item of player level -2
10. 2 magic item of player level -1

The DM should feel free to throw the weirdest, strangest, most useless magic items that they can find into the grab bags, even if it means making new ones.

*****

I hope you all have a good black friday, get some good deals, and enjoy some hot coffee, sold by high school kids, at 3 in the morning. Cheers.

A Thanksgiving Skill Challenge, Let's Eat!

Let’s Eat – A Thanksgiving Skill Challenge

Given that in the United States Right now, everyone is preparing for their big Turkey day, getting ready to sit down with the family and fight over the biscuits and mashed potatoes, I feel a bit down. I am living in Japan, as most of you know, and right now, my Thanksgiving will probably be spent eating Ramen from a cup. Given my utter jealousy for all of you at this moment, you should fee happy that I have decided to write a little Thanksgiving Skill Challenge up for some 4e D&D. With that, let’s eat!

*****

Note regarding level
This skill challenge is suited to any tier of play. All you need to do is adjust the DC’s to fit the level you are dealing with.

Introduction
Once a year, each year, the King holds a massive banquet for adventurers and heroes at the Palace. This feast is in celebration of all their hard work for the kingdom throughout the year. The player’s may have done something good for this kingdom in the past, or they may be just wandering through, looking for something to do. Either way, they are generously given an invitation to the castle to take part in the festivities.

During the feast, the Players may be given an opportunity to get information out of the king or other nobles/adventures. They may also have the chance to earn some temporary increases to their stats for getting their fill – or, they may end up as a lethargic sleeping mess.

How does the challenge work?
This is a special type of skill challenge. It doesn’t use the traditional rules for skill challenges as presented in the DMG. However, it is very similar. During this challenge, the player’s have a chance to earn points with every success, which are tallied at the end of the challenge to find out how well the player did.

Part I – Taking their seats.
During the first part of the Skill challenge, the players must find their seats. They have the chance to use several different skills to get a better seat at the table.

Any player may use Diplomacy (DC – Hard) on the King in order to get a chance at a better seat at the main table. A success on this skill check earns the player 1 point. A failed result subtracts 1 point.

If the player sits down at the far end of the table, after having succeeded on a Diplomacy Check with the King, they are asked, by the King, to sit at his table. This earns the player an additional point.

If the player sits down next to the King, he or she will be asked to move, losing him or her one point.

A player may also use Bluff or Intimidate (DC – Medium) in order to get a better seat. Doing this grants a +2 Bonus during Part II of the Skill Challenge.

Part II – Getting a Good Whiff
Although a great feast has been prepared, some of the food is significantly better than the rest, some of it is almost on the same level as poison. There are several ways for the players to determine which food is good, and which food is filth.

All of the cooks are lined up near the wall of the hall in which the banquet is held, a player that passes an Insight Check (DC – Medium) notices that several of the Chefs look worried and some look very pleased when their creations are presented on the table. A success on this roll earns the player 1 point, a failed result subtracts 1 point.

The player’s may also attempt to discern through their senses which food is good and which food is bad – they can make a Nature check (DC – Easy), or a Perception check (DC – Medium), to determine which food is particularly bad. A success earns the player 1 point, a failed result subtracts 1 point.

Also, some of the food has been magically enchanted to taste better and be more nourishing. An arcane check (DC – Medium) grants 1 point on a success, but does not result in the loss of a point on a failure.

Part III – Get the Good Stuff
Once the players have all gotten a good look at the food, the King says a few words and then the feast begins. The Banquet is a massive brawl for the best food. Everyone wants to get as much as they can.

The Players can use Athletics, Acrobatics, or Stealth (DC – Easy) to try and get their hands on the best food. A Success here results in a +2 Bonus to all checks made in part 4.

Part IV – Eat until you drop
The final part of the skill challenge involves everyone eating until they literally pass out from all the food that they are taking in.

During this part, the player’s each take turns going around the table making endurance checks, which get progressively harder the longer they eat. The first round, the DC’s should be Easy, then, increase the DC’s every round. During the 3rd Round, the DC’s should be Medium, and by the 5th, they should be very hard. Each round that a player gets a success on an endurance check, he or she gains 1 Point. If a player fails an endurance check here, they lose 1 point and must make a save vs. lethargy (basically a death saving through, except that no player receives any kind of benefit to the roll i.e. a 10 or better saves). If you fail vs. lethargy, you go to sleep and lose 1 point and you may no longer make any rolls during the skill challenge, thus forcing the player to tally the score. A player may voluntarily stop eating at any time and tally their score.

Part V – “Never have I seen a more lethargic bunch of adventurers in my life!”
After all the players have either fallen asleep from lethargy, or chosen to stop making endurance rolls, the challenge ends and all the player’s scores are tallied. The challenge grants the following results.

Lethargic Curse –

Any player that fell asleep from eating in Part IV gains the lethargic curse which lasts until the player’s take their next extended rest. The lethargic curse incurs a -2 penalty to all athletics and acrobatics checks, a -2 penalty to initiative, a -1 penalty to speed, and if the character moves more than his or her speed in a single round i.e. through running or charging, than he or she must make a save or become weakened until the beginning of his or her next turn.

King’s Favor

Any character that was able to make 5 successful endurance checks during Part IV
gains favor with the king; the king offers to aid the player’s endeavors,
supplying them with weapon and armor from the royal armory (at market
price). The King will also grant information more freely to the
character’s if they seek it out.


Banquet Champion

If any player makes more than 5 Successes during Part IV, the player who made
the most successes during part IV is declared the champion over-eater of the
banquet (note: it does not matter if they gained the lethargic curse or
not). The Banquet Champion earns the King’s Favor, but also gains a Prize
of treasure and gold equal to the gold granted by one creature of the player’s
level (he is not forced to share this gold either). Also, the Banquet
Champion is given a year’s supply of trail rations inside a specially crafted –
“Belly of Holding” which is described below:

Belly of Holding Level 1 Wondrous Item, Rare
This stretched and tanned pig’s stomach is greasy, but it
smells really, really good.

This Belly of Holding acts as a lesser
version of the bag of holding. It can only hold food or other items which
are used to provide nourishment. Any item which does not fit this
description, which is deposited into the bag, is immediately vomited out and is
covered with yellowish-green slime. However, any food item which is stored
within it is kept in perfect condition and never goes bad. The belly can
hold an infinite amount of food and the bag’s weight never changes.

Benefits of Being a Great Big Over-Eater
The Benefits/Penalties of Eating at the Banquet can be found below and are based off of the number of points each player received during the feast. Each of these effects last until the player takes an extended rest.

0-1 Point -1 Penalty to Reflex, Lethargic Curse
2 Points -1 Penalty to Reflex, -2 Penalty to Athletics and Acrobatics Checks, -2 Initiative
3 Points -1 Penalty to Reflex
4 Points -1 Penalty to Reflex +1 Morale Bonus to Fortitude
5 Points -1 Penalty to Reflex +1 Morale Bonus to Fortitude and Will
6 Points +1 Morale Bonus to Fortitude and Will
7 Points +2 Morale Bonus to Fortitude and Will
8 Points +1 Morale Bonus to Attack, +2 Morale Bonus to Fortitude and Will
9 Points +2 Morale Bonus to Attack, +2 Morale Bonus to Fortitude and Will
10 Points +3 Morale Bonus to Attack, +3 Morale Bonus to Fortitude and Will, +3 Morale Bonus to all skill checks, +1 Action Pont, Temporary Hit Points equal to One Second Wind.

*****

I hope you enjoyed this skill challenge. It was fun writing it. I can’t wait to run it myself. Stay tuned tomorrow for another world event – “The Astral Black Market Firesale”