Coding expectations

I've been working on kind of cheat sheet for the development team, and I thought I'd post it here too as it counts as geek :)

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Pair programming

Pair programming is a technique that hopes to achieve three main things. Those being: better architectural design, shared knowledge and code quality. Pair programming often reduces waste during code review as core concepts are already decided, leading to fewer rewrites.  When done well it helps to build trust and understanding between developers. The following steps are all equally important and can be considered a cheat sheet.

·      Define the task, with small goals in mind. You’ll then be able to move in the same direction quickly.

·      Agree on the solution. It’s worth spending a little time before coding to fix in your minds how your solution will work.

·      Talk constantly about what you are both doing. 

·      The developer with the keyboard writes, while the other one directs. An analogy is that of driver and a navigator. The driver at the keyboard makes the tactical decisions while the navigator keeps them on course and suggests short cuts.

·      Switch roles at least every two hours.

·      Consider checking into a temporary pair-programming local branch in git at each swap point. This shouldn’t be master.

Code Reviews

Code reviews are there to catch mistakes, keep the code base balanced and gain the insight of another pair of eyes before you submit your work to the wider business. It’s there to help and protect you, not to criticize you or force you to change complete direction. When you are reviewing others code, you should be wary of asking for changes to make the code look like you had written it. The following points should be considered during code review.

·      Select a reviewer as close to the code as possible. Therefore if you are pair programming or working with someone on a user story, they should be the reviewer. You must stick with this reviewer for re-reviews.

·      If at all possible, do code review together at a desk before it is even pushed to Gerrit. Even better correct problems there and then. This makes it more immediate, less confrontational, more productive and a better experience all round.

·      Review the code, not the coder. Refer to the code, not the coder.  Don’t say ‘your code here tests the wrong object’ but ‘this code tests wrongObject, not rightObject’

·      The reviewer should assume that things have been done by the reviewee for good reason. The developer has likely given it more thought than the reviewer, so challenges to how something has been done should be diplomatic and open. Equally, the developer may not have thought of everything and may not have thought of the best solution. When such things are raised in review, they should be discussed and either corrected or clarified (e.g. better code structure or comments may resolve the issue).

·      The developer should not take feedback as personal criticism. They should view them as honest questions/feedback aimed at ensuring that the delivered code is of an acceptable quality (fulfills the requirement, complies with best practice in terms of architecture, design and code etc.). Any feedback should be considered openly and as an opportunity for improvement, learning and to deliver a better end product.

·      Be clear in identifying the issue and suggest obvious fixes. ‘This doesn’t work’ is worse than useless.

·      Programming style should be challenged not demanded. Rather than saying ‘This code style is not following a pattern’ say ‘Consider the use of the Command Pattern?’ This however is not an excuse to ignore best practice or consistency issues with the code by the developer.

·      When you review code you become part of that story. If a reviewer just rubber stamp the review, they’re directly responsible for failure. If they sit on a review, or re-review you are responsible for it being held up. Check you requested reviews often.

·      Always respond to every code review comment in Gerrit. Either with “Done” or with a suitable response. This aids re-review.

·      Point out the good. When reviewing code you may learn things yourself or spot elegant solutions. When that happens, say so, the coder may be unsure that it was elegant and it positively reinforces the good stuff.

Checking in

Git is complex and powerful, and there is a lot to say on it, however these general check-in points are important.

·      The code you write is valuable and needs to be backed up as much as possible so that there is no danger of losing it.

·      Check the code in at end of the day. Otherwise you are preventing others from picking up the work to get it finished. We can’t ever predict what will happen from one day to the next in terms of illness or transport problems.

·      More frequent commits mean more flexibility in code reviews. This leads to faster turnaround and less context switching.  Small commits are easier to understand, easier to review, and can be merged to master much sooner. This means that your code gets picked up by others sooner, reducing the complexity of conflict resolution, and ensuring that your code is in use sooner which gives you a higher degree of confidence that there are no corner cases that you missed in your unit testing.

Everything I know about software development I learnt from playing Dungeons & Dragons.

Roleplaying games, the kind you play using odd shaped dice sat around a table with friends, are about three things. You play a role, usually a dramatic heroine or hero, you are part of a story and you overcome challenges together achieve some goal. Software development is also best done sat in groups, with people you like. It’s also about overcoming challenges to achieve a group goal, and often each person in the team has a particular role to play.

Diversity
The most famous RPG is Dungeons and Dragon, in which a party of adventurers explore Tolkienesque worlds fighting foes and finding treasure. The secret to a successful adventuring party is diversity and the same is true for development teams. If everyone in your team has the same background, the same experiences and outlook they’ll tend to solve problems in singular way and make software for people like themselves. An adventuring party made of just dwarven warriors might find it easy to fight their way through hordes of orcs, but without a cunning thief who will pick the lock to the impenetrable doors that guard the dragon’s treasure? Better to have a diverse team and end up with software that has been thought through by people of different backgrounds, genders and cultures, teams who won’t get snagged by issues that come from a single perspective.

Leading
Roleplaying games require a Game Master, sometimes called a Dungeon Master. This is the person who has the story their head, who frames the challenges and who plays the parts of the other characters in the story. It’s like a Scrum Master and Product Owner in one. The worst kind of Dungeon Master is one who ‘railroads’ the players. Rather than encouraging the players to figure out how to proceed, they tell the players what to do and railroad them into a particular course of action. This isn’t much fun for the players and rarely goes to plan as the Dungeon Master can’t think of every turn beforehand. It’s not playing to the strength of the game. The same is true for software development. When you’ve hired a talented group of developers, testers, product owners and sys ops don’t tell them as a manager what to do. Tell them what is required, and let them get there themselves. If they wander off from the user story, guide them back to it by reminding them of the features needed.

Resource planning
A big part of roleplaying is essentially resource management. Players worry about how many spells they can cast, how many gold coins it costs to buy that magic axe or how many sips they have left in their potion of healing. Eventually it becomes risk management. Trolls have hidden enough gold to buy the magic axe and a bunch of healing potions, but the fight might be so tough that characters could be defeated. Perhaps it’s better to face the orcs first and use the little treasure they have to buy a single healing potion so that they have a better chance of defeating the trolls. Or maybe they should try and sneak in and steal the treasure instead.

Software team’s dilemma is how to divide the work up between them. It’s rare that there are enough programmers, let alone QA to work on all the ideas the company has at once. It helps to think of resource planning in terms of risk management. Is it possible to take a small step that brings in some value rather than rushing into a big long project without knowing it’ll be successful? This of course is a fundamental principle in Agile software development, but incremental gains work just as well in D&D as it does in product development. When you don’t have quite enough QA engineers to give you complete coverage, do you risk reducing coverage or match the pace of development with that of testing? It depends on how valuable and risky the project is. Orcs or Trolls? Silver pieces or gold? 

Experience
As characters gain in experience in roleplaying games they also gain in power, and more interestingly options. A freshly made wizard can recite a single and low powered spell once per day but as they gain in experience, and go up in levels their titles and options change. An experienced Enchanter can change shape, go invisible, befriend monsters, throw fireballs. They can also build magical towers that aid their spells and train apprentices to do their lesser magic.

The same is true in a way of developers, both in terms of technical and product experience. When they start out they are often given very specific jobs to do that aren’t very complex. As time goes on they learn more about best practice and the way their software is used. The variety of problems they can solve increases, but additionally and vitally the creativity they can bring to bear on product development also improves. Senior team members should be building wizard’s towers and training apprentices.    

No More Heroes
There is one area where software development shouldn’t be like RPGs. In Dungeons and Dragons the heros and heroines grow in power and become superheroes, saviours, invincible and invaluable.

When you have heroes in a software development team it can cause all manner of problems. These are the people who stay late, who can seemingly solve any problem, who will avoid all the process and management layers to get things done. The trouble is they never look back, they rarely leave behind code that others can work with in their quest to get things done and disrupt the workflow of others because of their sudden needs for unplanned QA or releases. The set expectations that others can’t meet, hoard knowledge and avoid helping others. While the hero mentality is noble, and not to be squandered, it is better to show them why teamwork is finally more productive and desirable that wearing spandex and a mask.  

Beauty is (in) the eye of the Beholder

I'm in New York this week doing product delivery agile training in which none of the product team seemed to be paying any attention. Towards the end of the day we had to sketch persona faces and then have others in a training group vote on which one the thought the most interesting. I was a little tired and bored, never a great combo, and went off piste. However the beholder got the most votes none the less, proving the old staying beauty is in the eye of the beholder is true in more than one sense. 

Day 2, Hidden paths, deep and dangerous

So having defeated the wicked goblin cook and his rabble of staff, the brave adventuring party set about searching the large and chaotic kitchen of the Purple Bruise clan. A floor to celing wardrobe or cabinet yielded the first interesting find, in the form of a bound and gag human male. After some discussion as to what to do, the first instinct was to shut the cabinet again, the party release the prisoner, who is a tall, well muscled man named Druss. Druss is played by our Belgium Javascript Engineer Julien.

Druss remembers nothing about how he came to be found in hidden in a goblin kitchen, but was once a guard captain and the last thing he does recall is being a battle. Druss was rolled randomly using 4d6 for each stat in turn and produced a very physically strong character. The slayer subclass of the fighter fitted nicely and I suspect will decidedly help the party take down foes more quickly.

Helja the dwarf knight decided to search the cabinet some more, and it proved wise to do so as it had a false side. When he pulled away the hinged panel a delicate glass bottle of green gas slipped out from the top, but in an amazing piece of luck he caught the bottle (I rolled a 1). The high elf wizard, Riardon who seems to be rapidly becoming a pyromancer, found a box and layered it with material to transport the bottle, which is a suspected poison gas trap, around for later use.

Behind the panel Helja found a magical warhammer, his favourite weapon and two bags filled with gold coins and silver jewelry. It seems the cook had been hoarding things from his boss. Later Helja tried shouting the rune names found on the hammer and discovered it was a warhammer of thunder which could unleash lightning and thunder when it struck an enemy. He gave his precious old hammer to Druss, who also donned the chainmail vest of the goblin cook. Also stuffed into the area was old parchment map of what must be the surrounding area.

 

CC3 map

Then the party must have been blessed by the god of eagles, for they found not one but two well concealed secret door, going north and south as well as a silver dagger that the thief Lucan like the look of. He recounted a tale about how, when he was working as a fence, a thieves guild were buying silver weapons to fight against lycanthrope rivals. The secret doors were definitely too well concealed to be goblin made. Exploring the door to the south, the elven thief Lucan stealthy made he was along a rarely used narrow corridor that ended in a flight of steps upwards. Here he heard a screeching sound and out of the darkness shown many pairs of small red eyes. Then suddenly huge rats, some the size of dogs flew down and attacked. After putting an arrow into the first, biggest rat, Lucan retreat and a battle with giant and dire rats was joined. The party made a good tactical choice and boxed them in so that they only had to fight one at time. They dispatched the pack quickly, and remarkably none of the party succumbed to the filth fever the rats carried.

Rats in the walls!

After burning the bodies, the party explored further, finding the corridor leading away from the stair led to another secret door that opened into entrance corridor they'd fought in the day before. Then they followed the corridor up the stairs, and surmised that the dead end held a secret door that might lead to the area the goblin mapper had said the boss lived in. Not feeling ready for such a bold fight they decide to check out the northern secret door from the kitchen. It opened onto a short corridor at the end of which the thief could make out was a yet another secret door. The eagle-eyed god, Thurriak, had definitely blessed them, but it's a fickle gift if used without great care. Lucan boldly strode into the corridor and must have stepped on a pressure plate as large block of stone from ceiling fell on top of him, immediately knocking him out and crushing the life out of him. Druss and Riardon rushed forward to try and shift the block off of the body of the elf, but were too late even with Druss cleverly using his heroic effort to re-roll his athletics check. His organs had been pulped and the party had it's first death. I made Adam an award certificate in remembrance of Lucan's ignoble end.      
 

Lucan's death unlocks the second Dungeons & Dragons Essentials book - Heroes Of The Forgotten Kingdom. This means Adam has access to new races - half elves, half orcs, dragonborn and tieflings as well as the the new classes - druid, paladin, ranger and warlock. I'm not allowing drow in this campaign as they are, as intended in the original Greyhawk campaign, unremittingly evil. Another death will unlock further player options.

What the party don't know is that the original members, Thanus, Riardon and Helja have now made it to second level! 

Day 2, What's cooking?

Our intrepid adventurers decided to take refuge in the chamber that had held the goblins and walking dead monstrosity defeated in the previous session. They secured the doors and locked the remaining goblin a cell, then Riardon the high elf took watch and meditated over his precious and strange spell book while the others slept. Someone or something tried the door handle during the night, but went away again without further action.

Deciding to press further into the goblin warrens then entered the next chamber which they already heard muffled voices coming from. The goblins here, some of whom were unarmed, demanded to be left in peace rather than attacking the party and after various threats they put their arms down and surrendered without a fight. Apart from a huge green eye painted on the ceiling that the goblins said had been there 'forever' this was quite an unremarkable room that seemed to serve as quarters from the goblins.

One of these goblins with an artistic bent drew a map for the party that seemed to show some key points, namely the 'cook', 'nasty hexer' and 'boss' locations. As the cook was the nearest they decided to head in that direction, but not before exploring two more rooms they found. The first seem to be a nest of goblin-kids and apart from a brief discussion on morality the group ignored them. The second chamber though was some sort of temple to the goblin god Maglubiyet and was defended by goblin warriors and an acolyte, who seemed to gain power from the rough clay statue of the god that he stood next to. After a well fought battle Helja triumphantly took the magical amulet that hung from the statues neck. Thanus the dwarven war-priest of Kord struck down the statue in disgusted, bravely ignoring the possible curse that might come from such an act. It seems that the amulet protects the wearer from falling into pits and other dangers.     

Then finally they went into the goblin kitchen, which was a sprawling mess of pots and pans, horrible pieces of hanging meat, great steaming pots of foul smelling liquid and a number of goblin undercooks, lead by a huge blotted goblin creature, clutching a vicious meat cleaver.

At this point the party realized that they faced their first 'elite' foe, and immediately fell to planning the best way to maximize their damage. This was mostly down to the thief, whose sneak attack did a great deal of damage but relied on him having combat advantage. The wizard's Burning Hands spell dispatched a number of the undercooks, while the knight took the brunt of the attack from the cleaver. The head cook was turned out to be surprisingly nimble, but was eventually taken down from a combined weight of attacks from the party. A search of the chief revealed little of use, but the kitchen itself has yet to be and may reveal treasures beyond dried rat and boiled cabbage soup. 

Day 1, Star Trap Cage Fighting

After the running battle in the goblin halls that marked the 1st session of our Star Trap campaign, the party ponder where they might rest to relearn their most powerful spells and powers as well as regain some curative ability. Lucan the elven thief crept stealthily through  illustrated and dank dungeon corridors, revealing more of the map and discovering a way up into what might be the chambers that the rain of arrows came from as they entered Star Trap. They also worked out that a side room, which held another door and was occupied by what was probably more goblins as well as a taller figure trapped in cage, might have a secret door into the great wide hallway that seems to run endlessly into the heart of the level. Searching for it however revealed nothing, but Helja the dwarf knight heard a strange and ominous hooting, like that of a great owl, coming from the dark. The high-elf wizard Riardon recanted the tale of the owlbear, a huge ghastly magician's experiment that crossed an owl with a great bear and resulted in a beast both huge and vicious. The party decided not to investigate in that direction further, but to surprise the goblins in the side chambers. Just as the plan was started, horrors from the dungeon appearing marching down the corridors, undead skeletons! The party dealt swiftly with them, the warpriest Thanus proving his worth against these necromantic nightmares, although the skeletons were snapping off their own ribs and using them as darts. Then they returned to exploring more of the goblin's lair.

Lucan mustered all his subtle might and shot the shaman of Maglubiyet who was commander four goblin warriors, between the shoulder blades causing serious injury. The rest of the party then charged into the room, with the wizard sticking to the rear. A vicious battle ensued, with Helja taking the brunt of the goblins attacks and everything seemed to be going well until a goblin warrior ran to the cage and opened the door to the prisoner, who threw of it's ragged cloth and revealed itself as a putrid zombie. It immediately set about attacking the goblin. Helja bravely bull rushed the goblin, hoping to push it and the zombie further into the cage where they could be contained or fight it out between each other. Such was the force of charge that the goblin and zombie were thrown to the back of the cage, but the recklessness of the knight (a 1 may have been rolled) meant that he too went into the cage, and the door slamming locked behind him. The goblin threw himself at Helja's mercy while the zombie drooled a single word - "braaainzzzz". Desperately Lucan tried to pick the lock of the cage, but to no avail and while Helja held off the zombie, Riardon enspelled the zombie with a bewitching psychic assault. This caused the zombie to momentarily pause, and Lucan, having heard from Thanus that zombies are vulnerable to beheading then succeeded in a trick shot, shooting two wide bladed arrows into the neck of the zombie. Victory!

The remaining goblin fell to it's knees and begged for clemency, and although it seems nobody speaks goblin the party are set to interrogate the weasel about the map they have been drawing.   

It was a classic session, and really enjoyable for me to run. The combats, while fairly decisive went back and forth, the party started learning that to survive they need to work together and they now fear a creature they have not seen.

Best of all was that there was no way this kind of story could be told through CRPGs. People who have claimed that 4e is a MORPG clearly have poor players and DMs.

Day 1, Star Trap campaign begins!

Last night the inaugural session of a new Star Trap campaign happened, with players from work and played in our office. A few days ago we went through initial character creation based solely on class and races from Heroes From The Fallen Lands. I was pleased that the players all decided to roll stats in order and pick character class and race based on that, although this is probably a little to do with the their limited exposure to Dungeons & Dragons.

One player had never played any form of D&D, two had mostly played CRPGS and the final player of the four had played tabletop D&D many years ago.

The characters, Thanus dwarven war-priest of Kord, Lucan an elven thief, Helja the dwarf knight and Riardon an eladrin evoker-mage started their adventures in the fading city of Corsent, that sits a days march from the Star Trap dungeon. The characters had heard rumours about how the dungeon reached so far down into the earth that it opened onto the underdark and that a group of mystics had studied the dungeon, known as the Toolizith Cabal. After donating a few silver pieces to the Kordian temple Thanus learned that beings from the Astral sea were said to avoid some sort of garden that somehow exists in the dungeon.

At last the fellowship set off, only to be waylaid before the city gates by thugs from the Scorpion gang. A band of cutthroats hated even by fellow thieves because of their vicious practices. The gang leader demanded they give over all their valuables, claiming they'd all die in the dungeon and it was a waste to let fine weapons and armour rot below. The fight was fairly short and a decisive victory to the party, however one of the Scorpions escaped.


Arriving at the dungeon gates, the party was met with a hail of crossbow bolts from the surrounding ravine walls, they quickly entered through giant doorway and faced with two doors and a vast corridor disappearing off into the darkness they took a door, only to discover a goblin guard detachment waiting behind it. A fierce battle erupted, with Helja rushing into combat with the goblin warriors and the Eladrine unleashing a fountain of flame down the hall. A well placed backstab sneak attack arrow by Lucan almost killed the a howling acolyte of the goblin god Maglubiyet in one shot, however it lived long enough to causes two huge fists of divine force to push the dwarf knight back. After disposing of two goblins, more appeared from a side door and joined the fray, and with the knight now badly wounded things started to look desperate. Thankfully the healing power of Kord brought back life to the party and they triumphantly chased down and killed the stragglers who sought escape.

So what now for the group? Will the contain to explore the goblin haunt or delve further into the unknown?


   

16,000 words

Star Trap Dungeon just hit 16,000 words. The first half of the level contains 86 location, about 2/3rds of which are now documented. The second half maybe slightly smaller, but will probably push the whole level to over 150 locations, which include two goblin clans, a death trap, the necromantic device of Thadrak the Black, The mushroom kingdom and several entirely secret areas. 

It looks like I'm going to start running the dungeon with some of my work colleagues in the next few weeks, which will force an accelerated pace in dungeon design.

I'm using Google Docs to write it, as it's entirely portable and I really don't care if Google scan it for targeting keywords. GD is absolutely fine for this kind of stuff, as right now it's just for me and requires no fancy layout or formating, which I'd do in InDesign anyway. 

SVA XIII Warhammer 40K pictures

Last weekend I went to the SVA Campaign in Reading, which is a two-day WH40K riot. It's designed to have backstory and lots of odd missions. Players are encouraged to bring unusual armies, rather than tournament lists. Unfortunately some people don't quite understand what that means, so there were several Inquistor warbands with lots of rifleman dreadnoughts death-cult assassins and crusaders, but other than that it was a huge amount of fun. I went with four friends, Toby, Dan, Michael and Monkey, and we all played in the forces of disorder team, who I'm glad to say won. I managed 2 wins and 3 loses, one latter against a Inquistor list. There was also a great deal of beer and I have to report that Reading is blessed with at least one excellent Curry house. Anyway, pics!

The Forces Of Thrak The Babbler, Daemon Prince - my Chaos Space Marine army. Consisting of Plague Marines, Khorne Beserkers, Chaos Marines, Plague Toad Obliterators, Terminators and a Greater Daemon. Not shown is the Plague Tower and laboratory of the Khem-Master Fabius Bile.

Toby's Deffproof Ork Boyz. Not shown is his MEGAstompa.

Three of the four super heavies we took. Toby's Stompa, Dan's Chaos Warhound and my Plague Tower. Dan made the Plague Tower for me for my birthday. One of the best presents I've ever had. Not shown is Micheal's Heirodule which was as ever beautifully presented. The small thing at the front is an Ork Boy, shown for scale.

My Daemon Prince got hit by Rifleman Dreadnought autocannons, and all four scored wounds. The dice indicate my armour saves, which only one needed to 3+ for it to survive.

Pretty beakies

Mekdread Orks. So many kans.

Toby's amazing Ork warband. Built and painted in 3 weeks, the man is superhuman.

Close up of his stompa.

The winner of the painting challenge. Personally I thought Toby's Orks better, but he won the slayer challenge, after tabling many many opponents.

A close up of the Plague Tower. Those are Terminators in the foreground.

My last game, which was a complete blast. Turn one, hiding.

My opponent was fielding a Rogue Trader model army. The model in the centre is a Contemptor. We agreed that his whole force has been hit by a Ork shrink ray.

Anyone facing a Daemon Prince and about to be assaulted by Khorne Berserkers is right to feel they may not make it another round.

And then the Greater Daemon turned up. This game was so much fun as I had to table my opponent in 5 turns, but any units destroyed just went into reserve. Because of the campiagn point system, my opponent managed to do very well because he kept killing my HQs. My opponent, Mike, was such fun to play that I even though I was exhausted I didn't want the game to end.

Baron Hakkonein The Thrice Blessed

Here my Daemon Prince work in process. I still need to shade the green armour, which along with the iron banding willl match with my Death Guard. There is also the base to do, along with various touching up, but I'm pretty happy. I'm a better modeller than painter, and I'm not a great modeller, so for the baron to turn out reasonably well brings me happiness.

The 'wings' are similar to Blight Drone props, and added to the model by someone with real talent. The original model was an old Ral Partha Ettin. The rats head is of course from a rat ogre.

I'm not sure about the skin tone, they are a little too healthy to be considered pallid and not yellow enough to evoke maggoty. So I may add a light wash. I'll probably also quickshade the armour parts.

The model next to him is a Chaos Lord made from Iron Armour, Grey Knight parts, Chaos Warrior body and a very old left handed pistol I found on a model I bought of ebay. I'm thinking of painting him brass to stand out amongst the red of the Khorne and the green of Nurgle marines.

Teleport trouble, the Hadoopites

I started reading this article on Kobold Quaterly about travel spells and the difficulty they present to GM's at times and an idea gated into my head, which partially solves in from the point of teleport-like magic. I've not finished reading the article itself yet, so it may well match their solution too, however I suspect theirs is a less brute force approach.



The Hadoopites

Hadoopites are abberant beings that exist between realities. They lurk in the flaws of geometry, and hunt travelers who dare to shortcut normality. In appearance they look something a little like elephants, with too many eyes and whipping hook tentacles for trunks. Not being made of earthly flesh, they exhibit jelly like properties and are most often yellow, until they have fed when they turn a dull green.

Hadoopites can latch onto those that use teleport and gate magic, and drag them into a null zone where they attack and devour them. Worse, Hadoopites over time learn to recognize the psychic signatures of their victims, thus every time a Wizard uses such magic they increase the chance of an attack.

Mechanics.
Each time an individual travels by use of major teleport magic, such as the teleport spell, teleport circles, gates, etc,. there is a 1% accumulative chance that the traveler and their party are dragged into an indistinct misty realm, where shortly after the Hadoopites attack. Each extra traveler increases the chance by 1% at the time of travel, although that isn't accumulative.  Thus a wizard who activates a teleport circle, who has previously used teleport magic 6 times and travels with a party of 4 others has an 11% chance of attracting the attention of Hadoopites. 6% base, 1% for himself and 4% for his companions. The next time he uses the magic, he'll have a base of 7%.

If the travelers defeat the Hadoopites, they complete their journey and the base chance is halved.

(Note, GM's with software developers and system ops players may want to rename these creatures. Hadoopites hunt in packs called clusters.)

The Lure Of Chaos, or Plan B From Outer Space

After reviewing my Brass Wardens yesterday I realized there was no way I'd manage to paint all that I needed to before the Spikey Grand Campaign 2 day 40K tournament. I've brass based about 7 Terminators, but I still had so much to do, including the Inquisitor Kill Team, and I'm going to Copenhagen this weekend, so I'm unlikely to have any serious time to get it done.

So I've fallen back on my Nurgle Chaos Space Marine army, although this time I'm stripping off the Nurgle theme. With this in mind, I've decided to take a Greater Daemon and some Khorne Beserkers, which I put together last night. I'm much happier spray basing these beserkers, ink washing, dipping and highlighting than the more delicate Brass Wardens, which I'm taking my time with. I've still got to build two more Rhinos, one for the regular marines and one for the beserkers, but they also can be done quickly.

All in all, I'm surprised how much stress this was causing me and the relief yesterday once I'd made the decision made for a fun and relaxing modelling session rather than a panicked on, was palpable.

Last Temple Of The Spider God

Before the rise of demon goddess of the dark elves there was a great primal spider god beast called Aranith. Ancient humans worshiped Aranith and built underground temples to it, to gain favour and protection from spiders.

The cultures that followed the spider god dwindled, while the demon goddess grew in power and sent her minions to destroy all traces of Aranith. However the god beast managed to protect and hide it's high temple, deep within the jungles of the south. An ancient clay map has somehow ended up in possession of the adventurers, that speaks of the location of the temple as well as the treasures and dangers that lurk within. Unknown to the adventurers dark elves have managed to open a magical gateway into the inner temple and are also in the process of exploring the temple from within.

The temple is a dungeon built vertically rather than not horizontally, and the party must contend with immortal guardians, mummified spiders, traps and the deadly mystic wells that are found throughout temple. Bring rope, a lot of rope.

Last Temple Of The Spider God is a high level OSRIC adventure.

The Necromancer

I've been re-reading the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Players Handbook, as I've being toying with the idea of doing an old school D&D version of Star Trap. It gave me the idea for a Necromancer class using solely the PHB.

The Necromancer.

Based on the Magic User class, the Necromancer studies dark texts which lead to magical spells that work very much like clerical magic. The study is difficult and taxing, and the Necromancer is forced to forgo the study of some schools of magic.
Necromancers have ability requirements, saving throws, hit points and gain levels just as a magic user. They wield weapons in the same manner to, although through the connection leather has to the dead, a special ritual allows them to wear specially prepared necromantic leather armour.

Only humans and half orcs live lives short enough to allow them a connection the necromatic arts in such a significant manner. Half orcs may indeed be Necromancer/Assassins, but are restricted still to necromatic leather armour. Half orcs are limited to levels as Necromancers as elves are to magic users .

Necromancers are either neutral or evil in outlook. Neutral necromancers must make a percentage roll every time the gain a level to see if they are corrupted by their increasing powers. If they roll equal to or under their level, they become evil. Thus a chaotic neutral Necromancer changes to chaotic evil on a% roll of 01 or 02 when he becomes 2nd level and at 10th level a roll of 10 or less will have the effect. Evil Necromancers must also roll in the same manner but if they roll equal to or below their level they loose a point of charisma.

Necromancers may only learn necromantic, abjuration, divination, summoning/conjuration and alteration schools of magic user spells. They may cast necromantic clerical spells, but always the reversed versions, as if they were magic user spells. In addition to the necromantic clerical spells, a necromancer may learn Cause Disease, Unholy Word and Bestow Curse. When casting Monster Summoning spells, they monsters summoned are always undead.

The necromantic leather armour that Necromancers may wear is made from the skins of intelligent creatures and requires ritual that costs 50 g.p. in extra material components. Most leather workers would be horrified to create such a suit, so specialists must be sought out. Once made, the armour maybe enchanted as normal. Magical leather armour that is found is necromantic 2% of the time.  

History Of The Star Trap Dungeon

Smulhahoozin The Cowled, a primeval wizard of near godlike powers, was fighting a war against the great aberrant race in the dim depths of the past. During one of her forays into the underdark, she came across a wall of something that reeked of madness and the powers of the Far Realm. Her insatiable curiosity caused her to pause awhile to study the discovery. During this time she found the outsiders avoided the locale around the wall and because of this she built an underground fort at the site. Summoning her elemental servants to carve out much of the the rock around the wall she found it rose up further than she imagined, so she sent earth spirits out to detail the size of the barrier while she studied it further. Notorious for her impatience she never the less took her time and was careful to not let the radiant madness infect her. She summoned about her mind-mages, who were greatly disturbed by the object she now named The Obelisk Of Insanity. Some of these psionists died, went insane or were killed in mysterious circumstances while in study of the huge edifice. Eventually she gave custody of the Obelisk over to one of her thirteen daughters, Toolizith. Determined to win notoriety, Toolizith pressed ahead quickly and wantonly with further research, finally coming to the conclusion that the Obelisk could be used as some sort of cage and was built from the very stuff of the Far Realm. During this period her attendants fought battles with terrible beings that seem to slip into reality unnoticed near the Obelisk and the growing halls took on a more martial and defensive nature. Never the less Toolizith pondered what great entity she could catch and bargain with using the Obelisk. Eventually she decided to entice and capture a star being of immense power. It took a century for her preparations to unfold, during which she became more and more secretive and obsessive. It is even rumoured that she took to talking to the Obelisk alone for days at a time. Eventually her rituals were complete and as the stars aligned themselves as predicted, she rang a silver bell that called great Zhulbluhb'Tck'Nere, known as The One Who Gathers Whispers to astrologists. Surrounded by both arcane and psychic adepts, she fought a tremendous battle, both in the world and beyond but after much destruction on many planes, she willed Zhulbluhb into the Obelisk. Before she could recover her wounds and powers the soon to be god of secrets appeared with his then faithful servant and together they attacked and slew Toolizith, so that she might not learn the long forgotten whispers the star being could reveal. Events so mythically tremendous caused warps in reality and these two battles in such short periods of time created patches of magical and elemental oddity throughout the region.

Toolizith's followers were broken and fled, burying their leader in her own dungeon, setting traps and leaving immortal guards behind them as then left. Over the centuries that followed the dungeon has grown, both by those wishing to learn the secrets of it's deepest vaults and by others who use it as a home, a tomb or a hunting ground.

The Gatherer is still bound to the Obelisk Of Insanity, whispering promises to those that will listen, while the undead Toolizith rages in her tomb, waiting too to be freed.

One In Six

This photo shows the rolls from my spectacularly bad, and rather important Psycannon rolls from a 40K game I played recently. I needed 3+ 

My friend and comrade is an excellent Warhammer 40K player. In the games that he plays he rarely looses, and he often does very well in the competitions we go to, where it's not enough to just win every game, you have to win well.

He is very good strategist, however I think he'd admit that he is still learning and doesn't always play to the mission - the biggest mistake in 40k. However, without even knowing it I think he is a walking stats engine and he designs army lists that really play to W40K's threat range, 1-6. In most combat situations there are 3 dice rolls to determine the outcome, a to-hit roll, a to-wound roll and an armour save. Occasionally there is also a feel no pain roll, but it's relatively rare. Again except in extreme circumstance even the weakest attacks will score a wound on an enemy on 2 sixes and a one (for armour). This represents a very clumsy, very weak foe striking someone in terminator or equivalent armour. That's 1 in 373 odds and if you're rolling hundreds of dice, it happens. Normally however each roll has 2/3 or 1/2 chance until you get to armour, where it swings much more wildly. In small 'elite' units, changing from 2/3 to 1/2 is important but doesn't actually end up producing that many extra hits. However if you can roll 60, 80 or more dice in an assault it makes a huge difference and this is where his skill and intelligence comes in. He is really good a picking army lists that rolls lots of dice with decent odds. This generally means he runs 'horde' lists, if not horde based armies.

But the very best thing about his lists, and himself, is that they are fun to play. He doesn't swamp his lists with repeat choices, he names each HQ and champion and more often than not acts 'in character' when playing each one. His pirate Orks are hilarious and his armies always have a story behind them.

Still, he has so much painting to do! Ha. In your face!

 

Thieves World 4e - troupe style

I'm putting together a 4e campaign around a group of siblings, I suspect brothers, as they build a thieves guild in the city of Greyhawk for the HATE crew. It's inspired by a little by Ars Magica, Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser and of course Thieves World. There is lots of the Sopranos and The Godfather thrown in too, but with some dungeoneering now and again for good measure.

I'm hoping that it'll hang together well, if loosely, as it will be very character driven rather requiring lots of DM work, which I just don't have enough time for and also allows for players to come and go without huge impact on the running of the stories.

Hooked up with Google+

I thought I'd see what Google+ was like and hook up Illusionary Terrain to see how they worked together.

School clubs, wargames vs roleplaying

While playing Carcassonne with my daughter and partner last night I was talking them about how I got into roleplaying and my daughter mentioned there was a Warhammer club at school. I think it’s a something of a shame that wargaming has taken back it’s position within schools as the major hobby game.

Now I like Warhammer and I play W40K a great deal, as well as involving and enjoying myself in modelling side of the hobby but I think it serves children and young adults far less than roleplaying. When I was a school, when perhaps Dungeons & Dragons was at its peak in the UK, there were 4-5 active groups in the afterschool club and the one I joined meant I made some life long friends. I’m sure this is true of wargamers too, but roleplaying helped teach me how to co-operate with a group of people with differing needs and desires and achieve those goals together, which is fundamentally what cooperative adventure gaming is. This is an ability that has helped me in my career and private life far more than being a strong competitive and tactical thinker. Co-operating with people with different goals to mine in a way that makes everyone happy happens every single day and I think it’s a shame that more schools, parents and games companies can’t come together in the same way that Games Workshop manages to do to bring roleplay gaming to children.

If I lived closer to her school I think I’d get a great deal out of running a roleplaying club there, although I’m not convinced she’d stay playing for long, but she would be more interested in it that the Warhammer club, at which there are no girls I believe.

Critical hits and Instant Death - for a Hit Dice based game near you

Critical hit and instant death.

Weapons have a critical threat range, which indicates how likely they are to do serious damage. If the threat range is 19-20 it means that if the d20 used to hit scored a 19 or 20 a critical hit has occurred. If the creature struck had only 1 Hit Dice (HD) point it’s reduced to 0 hit points immediately, which probably causes instant death. If it has more than one HD point rolling another d20 and if that roll too was a critical then drop the creatures hit points to 0 hp, and repeat if there are yet more hit dice until a critical isn’t rolled or all threshold . Note that if the roll needs to have hit the opponent to score a critical hit unless a 20 is rolled. 20’s always hit.

The basis for this is that weapons do two types of damage. Instantly fatal damage such as stabbing through the heart that requires precision to kill. Attrition damage, for example bone crushing and muscle damage, allows the wounded to fight on but eventually slays the individual. Attrition damage is generally more easy to achieve.

Example
Drogan, a dwarf armed with a battle axe (+1 to hit, 1d10 damage, crit threat 19+) is fighting a Dreadtouch Megapede which has 12 hit points from 3 Hit Dice. He rolls a 20 to hit, which is a critical. As the Megapede has 3 hit dice it needs 3 crits to instantly kill it. He rolls a 19 but then a 14. The 14, although it hits, isn’t enough to drop his foe to 0 hp immediately. However he rolls 3d10 for damage, 2 for crits and one for the finally successful hit.

Weapons - a rough guide

Daggers are moderately easy to use, do low damage but have a high crit range.
+1, 1d4, 17+

Swords are moderately easy to use, do medium damage and have a good hit range.
+1, 1d8, 18+

Axes are average to use, do high damage and have an average critical hit range
+0, 1d10, 19+

Clubs, Maces and hammers are easy to use, do better than average damage and have a low crit range.
+3, 1d8+1, 20

Spears are moderately easy to use, do medium damage, have an average crit range. They gain a +1 bonus to initiative and have a range of 1 in hand to hand.
+1, 1d8, 19+

Missile weapons generally are average to use, do average damage and have a good crit range.
+0, 1d8, 18+

Spells that target single opponents generally have a average crit range (19+) while area affect spells cause critical hits rarely (20) if they roll to hit.

From this you can see why those people who are poorly trained in combat or are fighting well armoured foes pick crushing weapons like maces, which hit more often at the cost of reduced chances of instant death. Feats, powers, spells etc,. might increase the crit range of attacks.

Creatures and Hit Dice

Most humanoid use 1d6 to determine their hit points, humanoids are more vulnerable to damage than many animals or magical beasts, which use 1d8. Some creatures are brittle but difficult to put down, like skeleton warriors, who have 2 or more hit dice but only 1d4 for hit points, while others are tough but vulnerable, like zombies who use 1d12 for hit points but only have a single hit dice.

It’s perfectly reasonable for GMs to average and round up for creatures when writing adventures rather than rolling all creatures hit point that feature in a dungeon.