http://brunos-geek-reviews.tumblr.com/

writeinwhite: Reposting these figures by request :) She told...

Sat, 25 May 2013 14:44:28 -0400

writeinwhite:

Reposting these figures by request :)

She told me she had more than just the hedgehog, so I asked if she had a group photo of them… xD

As a side-note, I really like the use of golden paint on the hedgehog.

writeinwhite: writeinwhite: Minerva’s dnd figure! reblogging...

Sat, 25 May 2013 13:12:28 -0400

writeinwhite:

writeinwhite:

Minerva’s dnd figure!

reblogging my own pic cuz i love this so much and that’s pretty much it..

Awesome. Also, if anyone wants it (the mini, not the actual hedgehog!) you can find it HERE. :D

Low Life Kickstarter

Sat, 25 May 2013 11:19:00 -0400

I’ve mentioned a few times how much I love the Low Life RPG and often point to it as an example of an original game and a good setting to play for the right mix of chuckles and storytelling.

Well, now is the perfect time to check it out, author Andy Hopp is coming out with a revised core book for Low Life and he has a Kickstarter for it!

LINK HERE

Exactly what bothers me about Power Girl redesigns

Fri, 24 May 2013 00:24:19 -0400

power-squirrel:

When an artist makes Power Girl’s boobs smaller or covers them up, they are saying that there is something wrong with Power Girl’s boobs. They’re too big, too on display, too present.

There is NOTHING wrong with Power Girl’s boobs.

They are NOT too big.

They are NOT displayed too much.

They are NOT present too much.

Her fictional boobs are FINE, NORMAL, and PERFECTLY OK.

Peej isn’t someone to hide her chest. Yeah she’s got a boob window, SO FUCKING WHAT. She isn’t ashamed of her body. Who gives a fuck if she has bountiful cleavage? Peej has cleavage because SHE LIKES IT.

I’m a busty gal. One of the reasons I love Peej is because she has my boobs. The big, not hide-able orbs of power. So yes, when people cover up Peej, it reminds me of all the times I’ve been told to cover up and ‘look decent.

Fuck that.

Now unrealistic boobs that defy physics is a completely different matter.

Reblogging because, dammit, I agree so much with this and posted about it before.

writeinwhite: Dragon Turtle I painted several months ago....

Thu, 23 May 2013 23:33:11 -0400

writeinwhite:

Dragon Turtle I painted several months ago. Reposting photos by request :)

Since I’m the one who requested to see it, the least I can do is reblog it!!!

But seriously, if you’re a fan of D&D and/or miniatures you should check out her blog, she’s always posting pics of the minis she paints and it’s awesome. :)

crunchingnumbers: My neighbour is beyond rad. He’s a hardcore...

Wed, 22 May 2013 22:05:00 -0400

crunchingnumbers:

My neighbour is beyond rad. He’s a hardcore comics fan and knows I’m a big Joe fan, so he just gave me this stack of Marvel Joe issues.

He bought them himself back in the day, stored them in Mylar, changed the boards every seven years. All first printings. Impeccable conditions. Many valuable issues here, including, as seen above, #1 and even the Silent Interlude herself, one of my all-time comic grails.

I’m inventorying them right now. It’s basically #1 through #85 with some gaps here and there, all of the Order of Battle series, all of the Yearbooks, and most of the Special Missions.

You have no idea how hard I am right now. (Not a bad update, eh, Bruno? High five, buddy!)

Ahem. I GUESS it’s good enough to reblog…

Edit: Oh, I forgot! *High-Five*

Facebook truly has some spot-on recommendations… (sarcasm)

Tue, 21 May 2013 13:41:37 -0400

Facebook truly has some spot-on recommendations… (sarcasm)

RPG Talk episode 1 I talk about how to balance Magic-Users in...

Thu, 16 May 2013 00:51:38 -0400

RPG Talk episode 1

I talk about how to balance Magic-Users in D&D with the other Classes.
Side-note: I forgot to mention that spells are limited, while a Fighter can swing his sword all day long as long as he has Hit Points left.

"Royal families are basically people on social welfare who get a LOT more than others from the..."

Wed, 15 May 2013 19:30:33 -0400

“Royal families are basically people on social welfare who get a LOT more than others from the government and are generally loved instead of despised for it. Go figure.”

"Some men who want to compliment random women on the street are genuinely good guys who just don’t..."

Tue, 14 May 2013 16:56:01 -0400

“Some men who want to compliment random women on the street are genuinely good guys who just don’t understand why their comments might be unwelcome. Some men who want to compliment random women on the street are creepy predators. Most are somewhere in between, and guess what? I don’t know you, I don’t know your life, and I have no idea if you’re going to leave it at “Hey, you look good in that dress!” or follow it up with “But you’d look better without it! Har har! C’mon, where’re you going? I know you heard me! Fucking cunt, nobody wants your fat ass anyway, bitch.”

When you compliment a random woman who doesn’t know you, no matter how nice you are about it, there’s a good chance she’s going to freak out internally because for all she knows, you could be that latter type. And I get that it’s really unfair that women would just assume that about you. I get that it sucks that sometimes, expressing totally reasonable opinions like “hey you’re hot” will make women terrified of you or furious at you. That’s not fair.

But if you’re going to lay the blame for that somewhere, for fuck’s sake, don’t blame the woman. Blame all the guys who have called her a bitch and a cunt for ignoring their advances. Blame all the guys who may have harassed, abused, or assaulted her in the past. Blame all the people who may never do such a thing themselves, but who were quick to blame her and tell her to just get over it. Blame the fact that if she stops and talks to you and then something bad happens, people will blame her for stopping and talking to you.”

- Why You Shouldn’t Tell That Random Girl On The Street That She’s Hot » Brute Reason (via albinwonderland)

I’m reblogging this because I completely agree with what’s said. Well, I DO approach women on the street sometimes, but if they’re not interested and/or wary, I’m never offended and always politely let them be. The worst part is that very often I’ve expressed my frustration at how so many jerks make it difficult for good people to approach girls, and too often I can see the guy I was telling that to doesn’t understand, or even disapproves of what I said.

An Idea to Make Xorns Scary

Fri, 10 May 2013 16:35:00 -0400

I have recently bought myself a miniature for the Xorn, a D&D monster which eats precious metals or minerals.

Basically this thing exists so a DM can mess with an adventuring party’s treasure. And I like oddball monsters, I really do.

Aside from that, I was recently reading Green Devil Face #4 and one of the articles (‘Wand of the Weird’) had a table for random effects a magic wand could do. One of them was the following:

“The subject’s eyes turn into gems worth
5,000gp each. The eyes function as normal
as long as they remain in the subject’s
head.”

Now… You can also insert that effect into a magic trap, a spell, a mutation, it doesn’t matter… What matters is that to someone who suddenly has gems for eyes, the Xorn has gone from being a nuisance to being a terrifying monster who wants to eat his eyes!!!

you write this sobbing novel about your plight as a white person as if your opinion somehow matters. there is no such thing as racism against white people. stfu and sit down white scum.

Fri, 10 May 2013 09:04:00 -0400

O.k, o.k, I said I’d ignore all future Anon messages about this, but this was just too perfect an example. I mean, I’m kind of thinking this is just trolling and not a genuine opinion, but then again the internet taught me better. :p

First of all, I’m not talking about any sort of plight in my current life, I just explained why I was unfollowing certain blogs that I otherwise generally enjoyed, and how certain supposedly anti-racist actions and comments are actually racist.

As soon as you start pointing out negative differences that you believe about races, you ARE being racist. To say there is no such thing as racism against white people IS racist. It’s saying “Since some of your ancestors treated mine poorly, I can tell you whatever mean thing I feel like, I’m ENTITLED to it and you have no right to point out that you as a person had nothing to do with it!” or “Since there’s a lot of people who are still ignorant in this day and age, I’m going to assume all of your race is, including yourself.”

Now, you can think that’s the truth. But then you also cannot deny you’re being racist. That does include what one believes to be moral superiority. So if you think white people are scum, you can’t say you’re against racism. You’re a racist yourself. What would be more accurate for you to say is that you’re racist and you think the white race is immoral and whatnot. Don’t forget to explain in detail why YOUR race produces much better human beings too while you’re at it.

The thing is, I’m not denying one bit that white people are in a current position of privilege generally speaking in many important parts of the world. I’m just pointing out that the answer to all of this is not to become racist oneself, nor is it to assume all white people think it’s how things should be. But if that’s how you want to see things, go ahead and have a very limited life socially speaking. (I always believed that intolerant people limit themselves a lot when it comes to who they meet and could otherwise have in their lives, as friends or in some cases as more.)

So anyway, I’ll ignore all future anonymous messages about this and reply to those who are not anonymous, unless they’d just make me repeat myself.

And I think I’ll stand, thank you very much. :)

You don't like my augmentations? WHAT A SHAME.

Thu, 09 May 2013 19:01:04 -0400

Are your augmentations part of a complete breakfast?

thumbcramps: hi guys! this is a comic i made for a final in my...

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 11:29:25 -0400

thumbcramps:

hi guys! this is a comic i made for a final in my comics in literature class. we had to do a research paper on a topic we’d discussed in class and then accompany it with a comic with a relevant subject. my paper was about hyper-sexualization of women in comic books, but i decided to broaden it out here as well as personalize it and make myself the subject and discuss something i’ve been subjected to in the convention circuit and on the internet as well as thousands of other women, as well as give a cue to thought about how the comic book industry as well as the video game industry and even just media in general (all of which are male dominated) push such ridiculous pressures onto girls and women.

also, it feels kind of silly to have to add this since i hope it’s obvious, but i am very aware that there are men that don’t subscribe to this attitude, and am incredibly grateful that these issues are brought to light to people other than the ones that are subjected to it.

anyway haha i have literally been staring at this for 9 hours i don’t even know which direction is up anymore. thanks for reading!!!

:’(

justnerdboyproblems: Submitted by atticusadnoctum “Translating...

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 19:06:09 -0400

justnerdboyproblems:

Submitted by atticusadnoctum

“Translating every scene of every movie into D&D terms and rules.”

I might do that sometimes… Ahem.

If you've done nothing to dismantle the white supremacy that is prominent in this world, then you are in fact a racist and your cry for equality is drowned by your privilege.

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 18:15:45 -0400

Actually, I’ve often written/spoken/acted against intolerance, even when it wasn’t to my personal advantage to do so. That includes instances at a workplace and defending someone from aggressive individuals on the street. I’ve also written this.

Whether white people who don’t get involved in this kind of conversation are automatically racist just by keeping to themselves or not is something I won’t touch at the moment. From one point of view, to quote Edmund Burke “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” From another point of view, I wouldn’t say that someone who isn’t studying to find a cure for cancer is a supporter of cancer. I do have my opinion on the subject, but right now it’s irrelevant for this particular reply.

It’s irrelevant because as it happens, your argument doesn’t even apply to me, because many times in my life I’ve acted when I saw unfairness, I was never one of those who just watched from the sidelines. Therefore, what you had to say is automatically negated since you based it all on that assumption. You just read ONE thing you disagreed with me on and judged all of who I am based on it.

As a final comment, it shows a lack of backbone and commitment of you to send this anonymously. If you’re really passionate about this, why hide who you are when you say it?

I’ll ignore any future messages regarding this particular subject who come to me like this. I’ll also ignore any messages that would make me repeat something I already stated.

XP in my Campaign

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 20:41:04 -0400

Just a quick post to share how I handle XP in my ‘Lamentations of the Flame Princess’ campaign.

I use the XP for monsters and treasure as given. At first I thought of using the XP for monsters from ‘Castles & Crusades’ but ended up realizing they’re actually pretty close on average, and truth be told LotFP’s is less hassle.

However, I have adopted some XP methods from ‘Castles & Crusades’ into the game. Not the one that gives XP to a player for owning magic objects though, that one I think is a bit weird. A ‘traditional’ magic object already makes you more powerful, why exactly should it also give you XP? Anyway. Maybe I’d give extra XP to players who keep a cursed object though, as they learn new tricks to compensate for the problem it causes them. Same goes for a player who gets maimed. (for that, I’d use Story XP, which I’ll mention in a moment.)

I have decided to use their XP for role-playing too. It felt like the least I could do after all of the player’s characters had their teeth pulled out last session and they had to talk/act as such.

I’ve also decided I’m going to use C&C’s XP for Story. Now, I won’t award ‘Story XP’ for things like ‘Succeeded in the Goal of Killing the Troll under the Bridge’ or anything like that. The XP from killing the monster already covers that. (Although I could see it used for defeating a whole organization where a lot of planning was needed.) Instead, some characters or Hexes in my map contain secrets. If the characters discover such secrets, they get a bonus XP from having learned more about the world they inhabit. (A King’s secret will be worth a lot more XP than a local farmer’s!) I also recently read on another blog (Which I’ll try to find again and link here at a later date/edit!) the idea of XP for traveling. I think it’s a good idea to give certain difficult locations XP for finding them, again using the Story XP as a guideline. Not for ‘normal’ things like a dungeon and such, but maybe things like discovering a new dimension or traveling to another continent and dealing with a whole new culture for a prolonged time.

Finally, since neither LotFP nor C&C give XP for traps, I’ll use once again the Story XP rewards for the traps. Seems like an easy way to acknowledge that dealing with traps should also make characters more experienced, not just smacking monsters and other enemies down and snatching their loot.

Attack of the Tooth Fairies!

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 23:08:18 -0400

The Cast

Illavir: (Played by Chloe) A female Level 1 Elf exiled to the Human world because she fell in love with the monstrous and extremely powerful Snake-Woman she was supposed to watch over to ensure her captivity. She is looking for a way to go back to her moon to see her beloved again.

Bruce Dragon’s Bane: (Played by Cindy) A Level 1 Fighter and adventurer who follows Illavir around for strength in numbers. He has never even seen a dragon before, it’s just a name he’s given himself.

Rulius and Kelly: (Played by Stephane and Valerie, respectively) A father (Rulius) and son (Kelly) who escaped the clan of thieves and assassins they used to work for (Clan Slahvel) because Rulius overheard the clan was going to use his son as a sacrifice for a ritual. The clan doesn’t just let members leave of course, so both are on the run. Both characters are Level 1 Specialists, the ‘Lamentations of the Flame Princess’ equivalent of the Rogue/Thief class in other versions of the game.

The Story

It all started on the first session of the new D&D game I’m running. A thief stole the elf’s purse, someone else in the party noticed, they caught the thief and stole his purse on top of retrieving the elf’s.
What was in the thief’s purse? I grabbed ‘Vornheim: The Complete City Kit’ and rolled on the “I search the body” Table. I got a ‘Crushed fairy/brownie/pixie/leperchaun’… Except I realized it was ‘crushed’ just now as I checked in the book again for this post. At the moment I rolled it, I totally read ‘cursed’!
So my players open the coin purse and find a fairy inside…

And I describe it as just a small humanoid and such, trying to keep a mystery around it, but everyone just calls it a fairy and, well, that’s what it is. (Not that I confirmed it then!)
So Kelly decides to keep her. As a side-note, I told them she had her wings cut off.
Someone in the group mentioned, all amused, that if this was supposed to be a ‘Horror D&D’ type of game as I had told them, the fairy really wasn’t helping the horror mood. But they didn’t know it was a CURSED fairy. (That should have been crushed, but I hadn’t noticed that and the story turned out to be much more interesting with a cursed one instead!) So I just took the jab and kept silent about it.
The party went to the village where the adventure hook was, a local couple let them stay in their house for the night, and Kelly treated the fairy akin to a freaking cute hamster pet or something.
They just brought this supernatural creature they knew nothing about along with them to the place where they intended to rest.
Before they all went to bed, I told Kelly’s player that the fairy reaches to kiss him on the lips. Kelly does not move, the kiss happens. I had decided that would be how the curse would take effect, so I asked Valerie (Kelly’s player) to roll her save against Magic. She failed. We stopped the first session with the group going to sleep and Kelly doing the first guard shift.

Now this is where things get interesting as I had time to think about how exactly the fairy was cursed in-between sessions. I decided the kiss would be a Fairy Kiss, which acts as a beacon to other fairies of the same kind, as the one they had considered herself a captive of the huge folk without wings.
When the second session started, I rolled a die to see during whose guard shift it would happen. Kelly’s shift ended and she went to wake up Illavir the elf. Illavir had been standing guard for barely one hour when, coming down from the upper floor she saw two swarms of fairies armed with swords heading their way!

Their wings projected fairy dust all around them. One swarm surrounded Rulius and he breathed their fairy dust. I asked him to roll v.s Poison and he failed the roll, causing him to fall asleep. Illavir took the wingless fairy and held her towards the other fairies, indicating they could have her back. The fairies were having none of that diplomacy crap though! They tried to make Illavir go to sleep too, but as an elf she was immune to such tricks. The other swarm proceeded to part Rulius’ lips open and pull out one of his front teeth.
Players suddenly realized sh*t got real. Illavir made the mistake of trying to cast a Shield spell while surrounded by the swarm, who stung her with countless scalpel-sized blades and interrupted her spell on top of wounding her. Kelly was put to sleep as he tried to drag his dad away. Bruce swung at one swarm with his claymore, but such attacks caught a very small fraction of the swarm.
The elf fell to the countless stabs of tiny swords. Bruce, left on his own, rushed to the fireplace and checked to see if there was a log he could grab with his hands. I rolled. There wasn’t, all logs were covered with flames. Bruce stuck the tip of his claymore in one of the flaming logs and swung it at a swarm. He failed his attack and after a roll from me to see if it would, the log did indeed fly off the tip of the sword and hit a corner of the house. Another roll indicated that, thankfully, the fire wasn’t catching on anything surrounding it.
The fairies used their dust on Bruce, and he too fell asleep after failing his Poison save… I roll to see if the flaming log will burn the floor given enough time and it doesn’t. The characters won’t burn alive while they’re sleeping. Yay.
So during their sleep… They had all of their teeth pulled out.

So my players had to talk as if they had no teeth left for the rest of the session. Kelly remained silent and wrote everything he had to say instead, but it wasn’t a cop-out as Val actually did write everything and didn’t just go “I write…”.
I told them that dentures do exist in this setting, and maybe they could eventually find a Cleric able to regrow them.
They got no XP from treasure or defeating monsters, but I decided that having them talk like that for such a long time (and still for one more session to come at the very least, very possibly more!) deserved a little something. I checked the guidelines for role-playing XP rewards in the ‘Castles & Crusades Player’s Handbook’ and gave them all 25 XP for their troubles. But I like to think that they learned something about bringing with them a supernatural being they know nothing about.

Tooth Fairy Swarm

Tooth Fairies are obsessed with collecting teeth from their victims and once they have them all, they are content enough to leave without further harming their target. This is generally speaking. If a creature gave them enough of a reason, they might choose to kill their opponent before or after collecting the teeth.

HD: 2
AC: 14
Movement: Flying, twice normal human speed. Walking, 1/4 normal human speed.
Attacks: Sword Stings (1d4), Fairy Dust
Special: Fairy Kiss, Cutting/Impaling Resistance

Sword Stings: As a swarm, they automatically hit an opponent they are surrounding, once per turn. When most fairies of the swarm are armed with swords appropriate for their size, they do 1d4 damage. This represents countless small stings. If they are unarmed, they are unable to cause any damage to a normal-sized humanoid with their bare hands.

Fairy Dust: Once per turn, the fairies can choose not to attack and concentrate on flapping their wings faster so they’ll project enough fairy dust from their wings to put their target asleep. The target must be surrounded by the swarm and can save against Poison to avoid this attack completely. Anyone immune or with resistances to the Sleep spell also benefits from the same advantages against Fairy Dust.

Fairy Kiss: If a Tooth Fairy kisses someone on the lips, they must Save v.s Magic. If they fail, 1d4 swarms of Tooth Fairies will know exactly where to find the Kissed. They will arrive in 1d20 hours.

Cutting/Impaling Resistance: Cutting and impaling attacks do half their damage (rounded down) against a Tooth Fairy Swarm.

Photo

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 18:34:06 -0400

Elves from the Moon and Homophobe Fathers

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 21:30:42 -0400

Previous Monday, I started a new D&D campaign with some friends. I decided to use the rules from ‘Lamentations of the Flame Princess: Weird Role-Playing’ because I wanted something rules-light and I wanted the magic system to be a bit darker than the norm for D&D.

Here’s what one needs to know about the setting so far; It is a human-centric world and most humans have never seen other races. Dwarves remain hidden in their mountains and underground kingdoms and Halflings have small scattered communities in the forests. Basically, Halflings are the ones who come across humans more often. When it comes to Elves… They come from one of the three moons.

Elves are eternal beings who watch over ancient monstrosities, basically mystical jailers. Elves found on the Human world are exiles who can’t go back to their home, sent there by magic by Elf Lords and Ladies after being found guilty of a crime. They generally have extremely pale skin and their hair is either black or white. Some also have black nails. Basically, I wanted to make Elves creepier and more alien for the setting… So I made them actual aliens!
Elves have to be extremely careful on the Human world. Because they are magical beings (all Elves can do magic, no exceptions), they are great as sacrifices or subjects of magical research. That means that unscrupulous Magic-Users and cultists might want to capture them at any given moment if they know about them.

O.k, so enough about Elves in my setting. Who are the player characters? Well, I have four players in my group, three girls and one other guy. Here are their characters, I’ll also give the players’ first names so it’ll be simpler to share anecdotes in the future (If you’re one of my players, don’t worry, I won’t give away personal information! :p ):

Illavir: (Played by Chloe) A female Elf exiled to the Human world because she fell in love with the monstrous and extremely powerful Snake-Woman she was supposed to watch over to ensure her captivity. She is looking for a way to go back to her moon to see her beloved again. She wears a hood over her ears when in public and calls herself Kathleen among Humans.

Bruce Dragon’s Bane: (Played by Cindy) A Fighter and adventurer who follows Illavir around for strength in numbers. We didn’t really have time to work out Bruce’s background yet to be honest, Cindy had to create him the same night we started playing while the other players had all done theirs two weeks before. It is somewhat fun to see a girl portray a manly fighting guy though. Oh and by the way, Bruce has never even seen a dragon before, it’s just a name he’s given himself.

Rulius and Kelley: (Played by Stephane and Valerie, respectively) A father (Rulius) and son (Kelley) who escaped the clan of thieves and assassins they used to work for (Clan Slahvel) because Rulius overheard the clan was going to use his son as a sacrifice for a ritual. The clan doesn’t just let members leave of course, so both are on the run. While discussing character backgrounds, Valerie mentioned that Kelley would be gay. Stephane, who is actually gay, decided that his character Rulius would be completely against it if he learned. So my game will have a gay guy playing a homophobe dad. I’m morbidly eager to see it play out, but since for now I’m not planning to throw any romantic interests at the players, I don’t think we’ll be seeing that happen right away. Both characters are Specialists, the equivalent of the Rogue/Thief in other versions of the game.