phil bottle

Our 2nd session of D&D didn't feature me, as I was in a foul mood. But they played my character for me and I'm up to level 3. I've just read the synopsis of the night and I'm a little astonished that they managed to introduce a T-Rex into the forgotten realms. Not sure about that. My character Makkno spent the evening shooting off fireballs apparently. Synopsis provided by GM here: "Nalsheen (Paul) down to his last gold pieces signed up at the same army recruitment station. A dwarf name Laurel (or Loriel because she’s worth it) picked Nalsheen, a half ork and a tiefling to embark on a mission to investigate rumours of a drow encampment near South Ridge (where the cave is). They left a few hours after the other team dispatched to this location. When they arrived at South Ridge a weird magical disturbance was emanating from the mines. This had drawn in 4 large 7 foot ant like creatures called Ankhegs. 2 of them had made bee-line for Marcellus standing at a small, 5 foot entrance to a mysterious chamber. The other 2 scuttled out into the main town. Forced into a tight space the Ankhegs were at a disadvantage when attempting to attack Marcellus, who was ready to strike the minute they pushed into the chamber. Matthias protected Marcellus with sanctuary, whilst Slade charged in both swords drawn. He managed to seriously injure the beast, but was seriously wounded in its lumbering counter attack. Makkno hurled fireballs into the creature and Marcellus struck it with his long sword nearly killing the creature. Meanwhile in the town the creatures dashed to engage the nearby Captain Hayder allowing Nalsheen to slink into cover preparing an ambush. Slade, seriously injured retreated from the beast firing off an arrow that bounced harmlessly off the creature’s hide. With a second Ankheg clambering through the entrance Matthias ran to support Marcellus. Together they managed to hold it at bay, whilst Makkno killed the beast that had forced its way in. Outside Hayder charged into the two ankhegs missing with his fireball but mortally wounding the first in a flurry of blows. Nalsheen struck from the shadows finishing off the beast. After managing to overcome the remaining beasts (and levelling up) the silver liquid became calm and the magical aura of the crystals returned. Hayder lead Nalsheen into the mines where they discovered a newly unearthed burrow. Upon reaching the chamber Hayder ordered the team to investigate the nearby drow settlement whilst he and Laurel secured this clearly valuable site. The team began by investigating the secret passage discovered at the back of the chamber. After several minutes of squeezing through the narrow passage they came to a fork in the path. The right path smelled fresher so they ventured in this direction. They discovered an exit from the mountain range with a single lit torch. To their right was South Ridge and in the distance they could see a forest about a day’s travel away. They decided to conceal themselves in the mountains overlooking this entrance and wait to see if anyone came or went. After a few hours a dark elf mage and 2 soldiers emerged hurrying to the forest. The team stealthily followed but lost sight of them. Nalsheen tried to climb a tree. He failed, falling out and injuring himself. A bit flustered, he tried again. Clearly out of practice he slipped injuring himself further. Refusing to give up he finally managed to climb the tree. He spotted a number of broken trees and huge footprints in the forest, quickly identifying these as T-Rex prints. They followed a trail the drow had left which led them out the forest near to the coast. In the far distance was the large port city of Maspa. They ventured back into the enchanted forest. Losing their bearings they stumbled upon a clearing with a small brook running down into a rocky hole. In the distance the T-Rex could be seen scratching his head on a tree. Despite some reservations raised by Matthias, the team rested briefly near the edge of the clearing. They were interrupted when the head of the Tyrannosaur loomed through the trees. Nalsheen remembering the bard song, ‘park of the Jurassic’ lit a candle and threw it into the distance. The T Rex distracted by the flying candle gave pursuit. The team ran and dived into the hole landing in a soggy pile of hay. They’d discovered a storage room with a fresh water inlet. They searched the room finding some rations and water. Marcellus tried to open the nearby door stealthily. He failed alerting the 2 D&D playing drow inside. They sprung into combat, but Matthias, smashed one into pieces with his magically imbued mace. Marcellus charged in, missing the drow with his first attack, but cutting his head clean off with the second. The noise alerted drow in the next room. Matthias ran into the nearby bunk room to deal with the surprised sleeping drow. After a brief fight they dispatched the drow. Searching the mess hall, they discovered an ominous light looming out from an open door. Makkno’s detect magic identified a necromantic presence. Makkno, Nalsheen, and Slade snuck into the room where a drow mage was working on the corpse of a dark elf. They wasted no time in sneak attacking and knocking him unconscious. They tied him up and searched the room whilst he regained consciousness. There were multiple dead drow bodies in the room, an altar to the spider queen Lolth and a quarter staff in the corner that Matthias nabbed. When the mage came to they started to question him about a mysterious black crystal he’d been carrying." I'd day the experience is a bit too focused on combat right now but hopefully that's going to settle down.

I understand where you're coming from so no hard feelings but i think that's the end of me posting here. Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

Add my winnings to the charity fund please. Great result considering I left it late and picked my team quicker than it takes to boil a kettle for one of my famous cups of tea. Thanks for sorting Lee darling [emoji9] Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

Inglorious is brilliant. Wish there were more Tarantino type directors. Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

I like how you approach it. Intrigue and investigation and discovery are where it's most enjoyable. Turn after turn of shooting off fireballs etc gets boring real fast. Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

Yeah, that's quite a statement from you there Lee

Has anyone ever contributed to a D&D session via Skype? I wonder if that would be possible? You could join my new group as a player that way, if we were in a decent timezone. Maybe a weekend session sometime... We have our 2nd meet tonight. The first session went ok. I take these things quite seriously in terms of roleplay and don't have a lot of patience for silliness. Unless we end up playing Paranoia maybe. Silliness has a time and place. The group is partly new to D&D and one of the guys was doing things that were not in the character or nature of his player character. Which he needs to cut out. It was a good first night otherwise. I used Detect Magic to good effect at one point and which kind of made my night lol.

Glad to know I have 30 years of gaming ahead of me, health permitting of course

Has been the year of DayZ getting its act together, finally.

The awesome Agnostic Front revisiting their Oi! years

Great Oi from the US.

No, that'll be butt plugs in that case🤣 Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

Nice one Dave, I wasn't sure if those sites would work on a PS4! Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

I'll check later for sure! I suppose if I'm wrong on that, you could always access the web browser and do a speed check from there?

Can't believe they won a trophy with him. Spurs must be doing something terribly wrong when we can't win sweet fa, clearly we need a blunt[emoji23] Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

Patch 9 is due shortly, so the EFT developers have produced a new promo vid. They've introduced a new leader for the Scavs, to make them even harder than they already were. This game, fucking hell. Love it. They've put the Scav leader, Snaaar I think his name is, in the vid, ugly looking bastard, doing a snazzy reload of his TT pistol.

Have to be honest here. And Lee did give me the chance to have a say before they did anything, so no complaints there. If Moderation is going to apply, then it needs to be for ALL posts. Not just 'speakers corner' (which is kind of funny when you think about it). Which no-one would like. So, it needs to be discontinued, in my opinion. Any methodology you are going to use for this will leave you stepping on eggshells and trying to walk tightropes, tightropes laced with Vaseline. I'll go further in detail on this, if needed. I'm sorry not everyone likes what gets discussed politics-wise but that's life, we have opinions and I'm never in favour of trying to control that kind of thing. We're adults and personally, I like to know what kind of person I might be spending my time with.

Or maybe just hold out for the next generation of consoles, which are just around the corner. Possibly. If I needed a PS4 though, I'd definitely go for the Pro.

Funnily enough, the previous week where it seemed to be cancelled, everyone ended up on and playing anyway. Sometimes that's how the cookie crumbles.[emoji41] Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

Blind is terrible. Wish he'd stay with the Mancs to be honest🤣 Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

Not a chance I'll get this unless there is some kind of massive change in the industry. I've reached a point where I'm pretty much going to stop spending my hard earned money on triple bullshit games companies. I have plenty of games to keep me occupied for years. Other than Fallout 76 and maybe Red Dead I don't see myself supporting the madness any more. I need to save money for a new GPU and not buying games seems the bestxeay to save. Plus, I need to catch up on games I bought in sales. On console I still have Last of us and Horizon to play.on PC there's a queue and I just started Warframe...so yeah...fuck em all...for the time being....end of ramble[emoji6] Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

PS4 allows you to test the network and shows you the results. Check in network settings, it's pretty straightforward from what I remember. I used to use it if I ever switched between Wi-Fi and Ethernet. I'm always conncted to Ethernet these days as Wi-Fi is a joke when playing games like Rocket League for example. Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

I was going to have a ponder on where Wet Spam are getting their money, then I remembered my council tax is paying for their stadium. Slags. Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

That's three nights in a row for me. Very poor, Sony. Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

More like Counter Strike v Zombies, like Lee says, a lot of Zombies.