October Means Castlevania

 Last month, I replayed Castlevania Symphony of the Night. I'll probably replay a few more CV games over the course of this month, as we head towards Halloween. And of course, as I've mentioned before, some day I want to create a Castlevania megadungeon and run that campaign. I've made two abortive attempts at it in the past, and way way back, when I finally made my version of The Haunted Keep in Karameikos (BECMI Known World), the dungeon was heavily inspired by Castlevania. But it wasn't a big, sprawling, exploration-focused megadungeon. It was really pretty railroady looking over it these days.

While on my evening walk with my 11yo the other night, we were talking a bit about gaming (computer and table top), and he was asking about my SotN replay. I finished it off last weekend (I took a trip to Istanbul, maybe more on that in a future post). And I mentioned I'd like to run a D&D Castlevania game some day. But he suggested I should run it not with D&D but with d6 System. 

That's something I hadn't considered before. Besides D&D, I have considered RetroPhaze, the OSR game designed to emulate 8-bit and 16-bit JRPGs as the game engine. I think it might make a decent fit for the game. I've also considered modifying d20 Modern/d20 Past for the game. But honestly, I don't need to get back into the headache of running the 3E-era d20 system again. 

d6 System may be easy to run, but as I was saying in my previous post, one thing it (and many other games) lack is a good step-by-step procedural system for managing exploration. Star Wars d6 assumed you'd be running the game almost like an interactive movie, jumping from scene to scene. And while that would work if I wanted to emulate some of the NES CV games (and various remakes), if I want something like SotN, where exploration of the environment leads to hidden treasures and access to new areas, D&D is still the way to go. 

Or port some of those systems into d6, something I could do. I did it with 5E, and more or less it worked. I quit running 5E mostly because it's too focused on the simple core mechanic but with way too many exception-based special abilities. 

If I ever do this, it will still likely be old school D&D based. The monsters, character types, spells, mechanics, etc. are all there. I'd be going through and removing some options from what exists, rather than adding in new stuff that isn't there to begin with. That's always a lot easier to do. 

This is making me reconsider my revision to the first draft of Flying Swordsmen 2E. I've been going through it and streamlining the presentation. Simplifying my wording. Making the martial arts techniques simpler and easier to understand and hopefully implement. I'm nearly through the techniques, having about half of the Ku (black magic) techniques, the final set, left to pare down. I've done the Introduction, How to Play, Character Creation, and Skills sections. Once I get through with Techniques, I have Equipment, then GM focused stuff. As I revise and slim down my verbiage in the GM section, I may be putting in a few procedural systems for running exploration, NPC interactions/relationship building, martial arts training, etc. It's already there for Combat, of course. 

I've got a real good feeling about this revision to the draft. I think it may end up being my best bit of game design. We'll see.  

This is the Way

 For Halloween this year, my boys and I decided to make Mandalorian armor for our costumes. After looking at some of the high quality cosplay suits some people make (see the Mando Mercs cosplay group!), we decided to just go cheap and make everything out of cardboard. 

We started out in August, by watching some tutorial videos and downloading some templates for the helmets. We started with a test printing on regular paper:

Next, we printed the templates again and made the shells out of paperboard.

A bit of papier-mache added stability to the base helmets, and covered up the seams.

 

In September, we finally got around to the painting stage.

We had to order in some shading film for the visors, and it was a bit hard to work with, but we managed. Here's me trying on my helmet. I redid the cheek panels in green later, as my wife thought it looked too clownish in red. And Stevie, my younger boy, ended up repainting his whole helmet from "watermelondelorian" to "Cincinnati Bengalorian" a few days before the events (pictures below).

Once we finished the helmets (other than a few touch-ups here and there), we moved on to the gauntlets. For these, the templates were all for Boba Fett gauntlets, but we all decided to customize our own weapon load-outs on them. 

My right gauntlet, with whistling birds, flame thrower, and cable projector. 

The cable projector (the odd-shaped green thing) ended up being a bit uncomfortable. 

Here's Steven's left gauntlet, with blaster/laser, and energy shield generator. I had an energy shield generator on my left gauntlet, too. The blue disks  on the next picture are cut from a plastic file case. We used magnets to attach the "shields" to the gauntlets, but in the end the magnets weren't strong enough and they would fall off too easily.

Here's Steven's right gauntlet, also with whistling birds, flame thrower, and a holdout blaster on the bottom.

My left had the personal shield generator (discussed above), as well as a rocket launcher. I added a rocket later.

I forgot to get pictures of Flynn's gauntlets during the crafting process. He went fairly simply, with a flamethrower on the right, and a retractable vibroknife on the left. 

At the end of September, and into early October, we started working on the armor. Also, you can see that Steven didn't paint his gauntlets until after we'd started in on the armor.

 

We ordered some cotton cloth and made vests to hold the armor plates, as well as capes for the boys.

 

No one noticed my cheeky addition to my armor.

I made myself an EE-3 blaster carbine out of cardboard. Flynn and I also crafted a sniper rifle for him, based off of the one used by Crosshair in The Bad Batch. For Steven, he just wanted us to paint one of his water guns black, so we did. We also bought an extendable pole from the dollar store, painted it silver, and made a bescar spear for Flynn.

In the end, it worked out pretty well. Flynn and I wore our costumes out to my buddy's bar on Saturday the 28th, and had some fun. And on Sunday the 29th, there was a trunk-or-treat for the kids, which was also a lot of fun. 

With local band Goths on the Beach. (The choking pose was her idea.)

Halloween Seasonal Monsters

Wow, that's a generic title! There are tons of monsters in D&D that fit the Halloween season.

But I'm going way back for this one.

The "pumpkin-head" bugbear.

I've got a Jack-o-Lantern monster (from my old Beast of the Week series), but I'm thinking that in my upcoming session of West Marches, I need to throw in some of these guys. Pumpkin-head bugbears. The group has fought regular bugbears before, but I think this time I'll throw in this twist and see what happens.

I don't remember if it was someone's blog, or maybe one of the D&D themed videos I was watching on YouTube, but recently someone was complaining about the overuse of bugbears in modules. Well, slap a pumpkin head on them and I think there's less reason to complain about them appearing so often.

Looking good

My son and I just finished up putting the first coat of paint on his Predator costume.  We'll touch up some areas and do some detail work later.

Probably none of the kindergarten kids will have a clue what he's supposed to be.  But he's so excited about it!

Progress on the Halloween costume

Got some more work done on my son's Predator costume.  I think it will look really good once it's painted.

Work in Progress for Halloween 2014

Last year for my kindergarten's Halloween party, I made myself a Ghostbuster costume, while my son went in a store-bought Black Spider-Man costume.

This year, he's got the DIY bug, and wants me to create a costume for him.  So for the past couple of weekends, we've been working with scrap cardboard, hot glue, and tape to build a basis.  Then, this evening I stopped by the "dollar" store and picked up a few things to add to the design.  For 2000 won each, I got a black plastic jump rope, an LED flashlight, and some novelty sunglasses.  Turns out the LED is too heavy, so I'll have to go back and get a smaller one.  But so far, the costume is shaping up well.

Here are some pics:

The basic helmet/mask and shoulder pads.

The dollar store purchases.

 Sunglass lenses in the eye sockets.

Cut up jump rope for dreadlocks.

Yep, my boy wants to be a Predator for Halloween.

While it may not look like much yet, I think it'll look pretty good when I get done with it.  And I've still got plenty of time to work on it.  Here are the pics from last year.