Blegh

I took my four-day weekend staycation. In a few hours I need to go to bed so I can go back to work in the morning. Blegh. Unfortunately, while it was restful, it wasn't restful in a good way; a flu or cold seems to have been going around, and because I've been a bit more stressed and tired than normal, I was more susceptible. I spent way too much of the four days kind of out of it and not feeling well. So I didn't get everything done that I wanted to. I did, however, finish reading Lords of Darkness, I read the first of the Pathfinder Stand-alone modules (called Gamemastery at that time) which is the slim "Hollow's Last Hope" which... upon reading, I know for sure that I've read before, because I remembered it quite well. I think, however, with some slight adaptation, that's what I'm going to run for my one-shot guest GM appearance. I'll append the goblin attack from "Burnt Offerings" to the front of it, and change the celebration to a Christmas celebration, and the goblins to frostlings, ala Age of Wonders, which my oldest son really wants me to be excited about again because Age of Wonders IV is apparently a really good game. (I won't be, I don't think. The last two video games I cared about were Red Dead Redemption 2 and Star Wars: The Old Republic. I don't think I care about either of them anymore, nor that I'll care about any other games again for a long time, if ever. I'm just kind of over video games, I think. Weird for an 80s kid who grew up with a pocket full of quarters is weird, dusty arcades. Anyway, I'll read it again before I run it, and maybe dabble a bit in the 5e player's handbook so I understand how it works differently than 3e too, because otherwise I'm totally fakin' it. Which, I don't think will matter for a one-shot, or even for a campaign honestly, but maybe it'll be easier on me if I know the rules at least a little bit. 

I also read the whole first episode of Curse of the Crimson Throne, "Edge of Anarchy." I'm actually not sure that I've read the whole thing before now after all, now that I just did. I thought I had read most of the combined Pathfinder Revision when I had a copy of it from the library, but I guess I didn't get as far into that as I thought. I did listen to the whole radio play, so I knew what was coming, I suppose. Nicholas Logue, who wrote a lot of the edgier, darker modules. This one qualifies. It's an interesting one, because it "meanders" is maybe the best way to describe it, but taking it's time getting to the point while not feeling like it's just taking you on pointless tangents is maybe a better way of describing it. This particular campaign is one that I'm actually kind of looking forward to going through in toto. Urban intrigue, skullduggery, and stuff like that is right up my alley, and so far (and from what I remember of the radio play) this delivers. Not that it's perfect; there's a bit too much grrlboss power going on, and the lesbian themes are eye-rollingly stupid. That said, changing the character of Sabine to Stephan or Sebastian or something like that solves that pretty well. Maybe one or two other minor NPCs gender swapped back to being white dudes, but it's not a huge deal. 

I also felt like the Varisian and Harrow stuff that came after the module was kind of poor. Not necessarily terrible, just really not interesting. The way liberals romanticize Gypsies as a prototype of the Bohemian lifestyle or something is kind of weird and off-putting, but you've gotta admit that at least it was thematically appropriate for this module. More and more I'm kind of wishing that the Pathfinder adventure path modules were just the modules without the extra stuff and that they'd cost less. I think the list price when these were new was $19.99, but I'd have been willing to pay $14.99 for just the module and the stats needed in the appendix. I do kind of like the Eandro Kline ongoing fiction, but I wouldn't miss it much if it wasn't there, and little else of what it has really does much for me. Even the bestiaries start to feel kind of superfluous when several of the entries every episode aren't featured in the module. 

Another thing that I thought about this one in particular is that with it having a kind of urban skullduggery and intrigue theme, the whole leveling up from 1 to 15 or whatever is kind of weird for this one, actually. If this were a flatter system rather than a level one, it would work better. The whole campaign kind of feels more like a fantasy James Bond or Jason Bourne story or something; reasonable capable characters who stayed flat in power level the entire time would have worked better.

But I think that in general, the more I get older. I've been back and forth over time on what I think about levels over the years, but right now I'm more down on the idea than normal. 

And anyway, here's the kinda sorta Zorro character of this adventure path, Blackjack. Cool idea. Not exactly original, but using it here and having him on the lookout for an heir to the mantle among the PCs works pretty well.

I should re-up my Hero Forge subscription in the new year and make a version of this guy. I might even be able to get that pose, or something close to it.

UPDATE:... aaaand came back to work to set my hair on fire immediately. Sigh. Wow, what a terrible year end this has been for me for work this year.