Watch Beyond The Gates HDQ

Posted by admin- in Home -01/07/17

The trip from Fort Dix to Baltimore lasted approximately three hours. It had occurred to me that it was the first time in eight weeks that I actually was sitting in a. 29 Jun 02 Robert Arizona Gwin robertgwin@webtv.net. Hi: I was on Operation "Short Spurt" May-Aug 1963, & re-enlisted at LAON AB, France, I was in the Medical Squadron. Good points. I’m not losing sleep over it, but it upsets me (beyond the issue of printer ink costs) that they’re already asking so much from DMs, and they’re.

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Parkway Rest Stop » Fort Holabird or the Twilight Zone? The trip from Fort Dix to Baltimore lasted approximately three hours. It had occurred to me that it was the first time in eight weeks that I actually was sitting in a relatively comfortable seat. In basic training, there are virtually no chairs.

True, one sits in training rooms and in the mess hall, but those chairs are built for function, not for comfort. Sitting on a bunk is just not the same as sitting in a real chair. I wonder if today I would find a seat on Greyhound bus quite as wonderful as it seemed then.

More importantly, however, the trip meant three hours alone – away from other soldiers and drill sergeants for the first time in more than eight weeks. It had been easy to forget that the world did not stop at the Fort Dix gates, but rather it was humming along quite nicely. The tiny island of civilian life on the Greyhound bus gave me three hours to stare out the window and think about the past eight weeks, about my life prior to those eight weeks, and how strange it seemed that things I had nothing to do with and had no control over placed me on this bus headed south to some damned place no one seemed to know anything about. Once in Baltimore, I dragged my jam- packed duffel bag off the bus, and asked a few people where I could catch the bus to Fort Holabird. One person said, “I heard of Fort Meade, but I really don’t know anything about Fort Holabird. Are you sure you don’t mean Fort Meade?” A couple other people were equally as ignorant about Fort Holabird.

I thought Christ, these people live here, and they never heard of the place? What the hell…??? Finally, I asked the information person at the bus terminal, who mercifully knew what bus I should take to get to this mystery military post. Shortly thereafter, duffel bag and I boarded the local bus that would take us to the base. I asked the bus driver to let me know when we got to Fort Holabird. No problem,” he said. I was more than a little relieved to confirm that I was on the right bus and that the driver actually knew where the damned place was.

The uniform again provoked stares, smiles and glares from the other passengers. By this time, I was becoming accustomed to it. Besides, I was tired, and I just wanted to get to wherever the hell I was supposed to be.“Here’s the base, son,” the driver said, as he stopped the bus by the gate, in front of a guardhouse.

I struggled with the duffle bag down the bus aisle and thanked the driver as I turned to step off through the bus doors. As I got off the bus, I was horrified to see an MP (military policeman) looking at me and walking at a brisk pace from the guardhouse in my direction. Oh hell. Here it comes.

He was a tall, staff sergeant, the same rank as my drill sergeant. I didn’t think it possible, but the MP looked even more frightening than the drill sergeants I had just spent eight weeks with. He was wearing the white MP helmet and a black MP armband.

His trousers were bloused over his spit- shined airborne boots, and he wore a 4. I braced myself for what I was certain would be a ration of shit about something or other I was not doing right.

Before I could say that I was reporting for duty (that’s what one is supposed to say), he said, “Hi. You need help with that bag?”I said, “Pardon me?” What did he say?? He repeated, “How ya doing? You look like you could use some help with that bag.”I was speechless. I could only nod my head in the affirmative, something that would have unleashed a torrent of invective from a drill sergeant about the importance of “sounding off like you got a pair!”The MP looked at me for a moment, and I thought, OK, let the hollering begin. He didn’t holler; He said, “You look beat,” and he effortlessly tossed my duffel bag over his shoulder and carried it to the guardhouse.

He set it down and asked, “Where on the base are you headed?” Still in shock, I told him that I had no idea where I was headed. I just knew that I was ordered to come here. He smiled – he actually smiled – and said, “No problem. Let me take a look at your orders.”He took a quick look at the orders and said, “O. K. The building you have to report to is about a quarter mile down this street on the right side – big brick building – you can’t miss it. When you get there, ask for Sergeant Perez.

He’ll get you squared away.” I thanked him and began walk in the direction he had indicated. The MP shouted behind me, “Wait!” I thought, OK, I knew that this was too good to be true – this must be some kind of trap. Now, the hollering will begin.

I turned in his direction and said, “Yes?” He said, “It’s really too far for you to walk with that bag. I’ll have someone drive you.” OK, Jimbo, this must be some kind of a Twilight- friggin’- Zone thing. There is no way that white- helmeted, bloused- trousered, pistol packin’staff sergeant MP just said that he would get me a ride because it was too far for me to walk with a heavy bag. But, that’s what he said. The MP got on the phone, and in a minute or two a corporal appeared in an Army car and said, “You the guy who needs a ride? Hop in.”. During the short ride to my destination, I couldn’t think of anything to say to the corporal, other than to thank him for the lift. Here’s the barracks building” he said.

Sergeant Perez should be in the orderly room. He’ll check you in.”I found the orderly room, and, just as promised, Sergeant Perez was there. He was a sergeant- first class (three stripes up and two rockers). Again, I found myself thinking that it was absolutely impossible for a sergeant- first- class to be anything other than mean and ornery. When I entered the room, breathless from having lugged the bag up the stairs, Sergeant Perez looked up from the papers on his desk, and said, “Yes?

What can I do for you?” Wait a minute. This is the way civilized people speak. Sergeants don’t talk this way. What in Christ’s name is going on here?“I’m reporting for duty, sergeant.”“Oh, you must be one of the new students. You’re a little early, but that is not a problem.” Did he say “students?”I could no longer contain myself. I blurted out, “What is this place?”“You don’t know?” the sergeant said.“No I don’t, and I have not been able to find anyone who knows anything about this place.”“This is the United States Army Military Intelligence School.”I stood there in silence trying to process it all.

After a few seconds, I asked, “What will I be doing here?”“Let’s take a look at your orders, and we’ll see.” I handed him my orders, and he said, “You are a 9. C. You’re an interrogator.”“An interrogator?” He remained patient, despite my stupidly repeating everything I had just heard.“Yes, that’s what a 9. C is. I also see that you speak German.”“Well, I took the German test. How can you tell from looking at the orders that I speak German?”The sergeant explained, “It says that your MOS (military occupation specialty) is 9. C2. L2. 9. The “9. C” tells me that you are an interrogator, and the “2. L2. 9” tells me that you speak German.” I couldn’t help thinking back to that miserable bastard at Fort Dix who tried to intimidate me into not taking the German test.

The sergeant, still looking at my orders, continued, “Oh, now I know why you might be a little puzzled by all this. I see that you are a draftee. We don’t get many draftees. Most guys enlist in order to get into Military Intelligence and they know in advance what it is all about.” “Well, it’s close to the end of the work day here, so let me get you some bedding and show you to the barracks.” Hold it. A sergeant- first- class is going to get my bedding and show me to the barracks? People in hotels show you to your room. People in the Army don’t show you to your room.

Twilight Zone….

Hoard of the Dragon Queen [5e]Wolfgang Baur & Steve Winter. WOTCD& D 5. ELevels 1- 7. In an audacious bid for power the Cult of the Dragon, along with its dragon allies and the Red Wizards of Thay, seek to bring Tiamat from her prison in the Nine Hells to Faerun. To this end, they are sweeping from town to town, laying waste to all those who oppose them and gathering a hoard of riches for their dread queen.

The threat of annihilation has become so dire that groups as disparate as the Harpers and Zhentarim are banding together in the fight against the cult. Never before has the need for heroes been so desperate. This is an 8- episode adventure that is, generally, not very good. It’s not the episodic nature, that I can accept. WOTC wants to run D& D at game stores every week and to do that they need episodic content. I get that. I might quibble that they could do better at the episodic nature and making it feel less railroad, but I get it.

No, the adventure is of lower quality because it feels like a 4e episodic adventure. Here’s a monster. Go fight it. Next! A potentially exciting and dynamic environment is introduced! And then they screw it up with the details … or lack thereof.

As a DM & player you have a lot choices in what system you play and which of the tens of thousands of published adventures you play. There is no reason to play this except for “it’s what everyone else is playing at the game store on Wednesday night.” That’s a shame. I see a few major issues with the adventure. First, it’s generic. It’s very non- specific, so much so that it seems like the designers are actually afraid of offering details.

They will provide reams of data on the over- arching story and plot but then when you get to the actual adventure there are words like “throw a couple of encounters at the players” … with nothing else present. Or they clearly have an idea of how the adventure should proceed, like with the lizard man allies in episode 6, but are terrified of being accused of railroading. This extends to the descriptions, which are almost universally uninspiring. They feel flat and boring. The magic items are completely generic “ 1 sword”, and the titular HOARD of the Dragon Queen is actually abstracted throughout most of the adventure. The text does not inspire you, the DM, and that may be the most important sin.

It is very rare for me to complain in a review about formatting I care much more about the content and the imagination present in the adventure, but this time I feel I need to. They have chosen a very conversational style that contributes to a Wall of Text issue. There is not enough use of offsets and bullet lists and the like to allow the DM to reference important information quickly. This conversational style confusion tends to mix with some some poor choices for organization of text. In episode 8, for example, the first part involves getting in to the castle, but this information is scattered throughout the text of the first part.

Three ARE issues with railroad, with lack of player agency, with villain monologues and “pass a skill roll if you want to go on the adventure”, but these are minor and more easily fixed, both by the DM and by the designers in the next adventure. Episode 1 – Town under Siege. While pursuing the most generic hook known to man: caravan guard. In the first 2 D& D products that’s twice now that it’s been used. Time to maybe branch out and try a hook with some life to it? And both times it’s been a complete throwaway. The hook is literally “maybe the players are caravan guards.” That’s pretty lame.

So lame that it makes me think they are pushing some kind of agenda. Idle speculation is idle though; in the end the hook is lame and reflects badly … but accurately foretells what it to come. Generic Lameness. You come upon a town being looted by monsters! Mercenaries, kobolds, and a dragon zoom about through the streets!

Oh’s No’s! You’re then presented with 8 little encounters to run, one of which should be done first. The first is a family being chased by kobolds. The goal is to rescue the family and then they’ll tell you to take them to the central keep, where in you can pick up the rest of the missions. The kobolds ignore you, thinking you are their allies. If you escort the family to the keep then you are the last ones through before the gate is barred right before the keep is surrounded by enemy forces. It all smacks me as a little … forced. Look, yeah, I know why.

You want to give the players missions to do. But there should be LOTS of ways to do that without forcing them in to the keep and setting up some kind of EPIC MOMENT when the gates are barred behind you. What about the same thing in the church? Or a family in a cellar? Or any of a dozen other things that could have been added? But no, rather than the thing being run as a dynamic environment with brief suggestions it instead has to be run as a railroad.

BULL. SHIT. Like I said earlier, I could quibble with the nature of how the episodes are done, and make comments on how they could be less railroady … but … ok, I guess I just did. The GENERIC content though is what breaks this. There is something that quite literally looks like a skill challenge. To sneak through town you need to make stealth checks. For every two you have a random encounter. Ok, that’s not bad.

It even makes sense! But then the encounters … ug! That’s what passes for CREATIVE CONTENT from Wolfgang & Winter. Seriously? You get exactly one interesting option: 1d. That’s it. That’s something a DM can work with. But just a generic list of monsters? Why the hell did they even both?

Give the thing some life! How about those 6 kobolds have a wagon piled high with bed frame and dressers? Of the bandits are rolling some kegs of ale down the road? It wouldn’t kill you to add a single sentence each and it would do WONDERS to help bring the scenes to life. This same thing is the problem with the rest of the first episode. The encounters are presented as generically as possible.

Yes, the DM must bring the encounter to life, we all know and accept that. But the designers job is to give the DM the tools to do that. To help them. This don’t do that. The vast majority of the text is spent on bullshit superfluous text instead of communicating an evocative and dynamic encounter. The Cult of the Dragon led by d. KJSDFKHD KDFgwk. DGF the high K: WDH: KE: H of K@WGKEGKE@ is …” Ug! How about instead you tell me that the encounter with the dudes at the stream bank has them about to drown a group of townsfolk?

That would be cool! That create something to work with! The issues extends to the maps, or lack thereof. The church, mill, stream bank, are all supposed to be exciting encounter locations. I can understand not want to enable the tactical miniatures boardgames crowd, but it wouldn’t kill you to provide a small map of the environment with some interesting shit on it for the players to key off of. Reeds to hide behind! Slippery bank! Steep dropoff!

Pile of hay, smoldering! If you put “the party will encounter 3 groups of kobolds on the way to the inn” in the adventure then that is exactly what is going to happen in AP.

The asshat DM is going to say “ok, you encounter kobolds, Roll init” and then they are going to say it twice more. I know the rules can’t cure stupid, or a bad DM, but you can at least give the tool something to work with.

You encounter a group of kobolds rolling ale barrels down the road.” That provides SO many more options! You get glimpses every now and then that they are trying. The Governor, wounded, trying to marshall a desperate defense … but it’s just a glimpse and then it’s gone. Rather than coming across as a desperate town under siege with a beleaguered leader instead you get generic- ville, population YOU. I don’t get it. Standards & Practices maybe? I’m not asking for full on gore mode but there’s hardly any flavor here at all. Oh, wait, wait, I forgot.

Governor MORON gets pissy at you if you’ve done something that caused the death of one of the townsfolk.