Capitalism is FUN
15-Jan-03
Oooo, look! It’s a multi-cut post!!!
I spent a lot of money on miniatures last night. And again today. These are in preparation for the Land of Og game I will be running at DunDraCon on February 17 at 8:00 in the morning (yikes!). Actually, a Monday morning game is perfect for Og, since you play a caveman and nobody can actually think at that hour, but 8 AM– sheesh!
About OG
For some background: Land of Og is a prehistoric RPG, in which there is, thankfully, no magic. Which is good, because grunting out the verbal component for a spell would be difficult– speech hasn’t really been invented yet, either. Each caveperson starts with one to three words, so a large part of the game is physical role-playing, hand gestures, etc.
Challenges include small furry thing (rats and other rodents), small hairy sky thing (birds, like hawks and aggressive owls), big big hairy thing (mammoths), and big big big hairy BANG BANG thing (dinosaurs). And before you challenge that dinosaurs and cavemen did not co-exist, go watch a few good Hollywood films, would ya? Sheesh. You’d think people would learn…
Anyway, the stats are on a scale of 1-18, not unlike D&D. Except you don’t get 3d6 to generate your stats. Cause you’re a caveman, dummy. You get one d6 to generate the majority of your stats, and two for your primary stat (which is based on your caveman character class).
There’s an add-on book with kits. Only the truly insane would buy the add-on book for a game as unplayable as this, and actually expect to use the kits in a game.
Only the truly, truly insane would make PDF character sheets for the game, including sections like “Me Cave” to describe the dwelling-place of your caveman character. (What? Don’t you usually do that kind of background information when you’re actually playing a character long-term? What’s the survivability of these characters, anyway?)
Yeah. Not great. No, really. Not great at all. It’s hard to get them to leave the cave. “Hairy sky thing” scares the bejeebuses out of them. They frequently start out with ONE or TWO hit points of health, and your average small rodent can do one or two hit points of damage in a round of combat. Cavemen are typically armed with rocks, unless they somehow got lucky and wrestled a rat to the floor, turned it into a SAC (small animal carcass, the currency of Og) and traded it for something more useful, like a sharp stick.
Fire is to Og what Uzis are to Greyhawk.
The miniatures are, really, just for my own amusement. I mean, how many people do you know with a full set of cast and painted prehistoric miniatures for a game that people can’t stand to play for more than a few hours? Well, okay, but how about people who have actually moved out of their parents’ basements?
[Note to those following along at home: I do not live in my parents' basement. . . . . Mom lives in a trailer and doesn't have a basement....]
Looking for Prehistoric Miniatures
I bought miniatures from Jeff Valent studios. I bought two each of the cavemen, one each of the cavewomen, a cavewoman dragging a caveman, a tar pit, two velociraptors, and a triceratops. That was probably more expensive than I needed it to be. In fact, I should probably cancel the second order (of one each of the cavemen), since I found the 4-caveman set at DEI. I want to make sure DEI actually has them available first, though, just to be sure…..
I then wandered over to Reaper Miniatures and bought one Neanderthal champion, one caveman dragging cavewoman, a dire boar (it’s reusable and will make a good prehistoric boar), a carnivorous ape, and a saber-toothed tiger.
Reaper was supposed to release a Tyrannosaurus Rex box set in August, 2002. Less than 6 months later, it is nowhere to be found on their site. I am very sad. In fact, if anyone finds dinosaur miniatures, let me know. These are the metal miniatures– not plastic toys, thanks– I’m not totally pathetic. Oh, who am I kidding? Still, metal miniatures– not plastic, brightly-colored toys.
Today, I ordered the 4-caveman set that was out of print from Reaper from DEI Games, and some bone dice. These are pretty cool six-sided dice that are shaped like bones, but are uniform in shape (so you aren’t skewing your dice). They will work really well in the Og game in February, kind of add to the ambiance.
I’m planning to wear the simplest clothes I can, preferably something unworked or very rough-hewn, for the game. But that’s really because the game is at 8 in the fricking morning, and I’m secretly planning to wear my pajamas.
Looking for a Geek-Boy Miniature
As a result of my searches, and on an unrelated quest for miniatures, I have decided that, for whatever stupid reasons, nobody (well, Reaper specifically) makes miniatures for bookish young clerics of the god of knowledge who have absolutely no fighting experience or skills whatsoever. Yes, I am looking for a miniature that basically says “Hi, I’m a gay geek, thank you for not killing me.” [Not that Thurm the Stormbringer or Brag Ironballs couldn't be gay miniatures, but in this case, I'm looking for something that could only be called effete].
This miniature quest is for an NPC party member who, according to the modules, never should have joined the party to begin with. But, well, when they failed to complete the task he hired them for, he was a little heartbroken and kind of “went on sabbatical” from his position in the church. He is now an adventuring cleric of Boccob– they don’t usually get out much, you know. When the party was coming up with weapons for everyone, he basically said “Um, what would I do with it? Slam a book closed in someone’s face? No thanks– people with weapons generally seem to end up needing them.” So he’s armed with a small eating knife and a quarterstaff, which he mainly uses for walking around with. Most of the time, he’s unarmed entirely, as the party has a knack for losing skirmishes and thereby their weaponry.
Later this evening, I’m going to accompany on her quest for a formal dress for an occasion. She’s starting her own quest in Palo Alto.
Aren’t you all glad I’m doing my part to stimulate the economy?