Personal | Youseph Tanha

What’s Going On Behind My Dungeon Master Screen

From the pictures I took of my Dungeons & Dragons game last week, I got a pretty good shot from behind the Dungeon Master Screen. I thought I would explain a little about what I have going on here.

The Dungeons & Dragons 4.0 Screen
Bottle caps I use to indicate if a player is prone or bloodied for example
Funky looking pencil sharpener
Dice
A Full pencil box.
Monster Tokens from the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set. Helps represent monster locations on the battlemat
Miniatures used for represent good and bad guys.
Wet erase markers for the battlemat
legal pad used as scratch paper for notes and initiative order.
Gridded notebook containing Maps and notes of a particular adventure.
A box containing index cards. On the cards will be written items in a particular store or even in hidden treasures.

To Be Continued…

The First Game I Ever Ran

This last weekend I ran my first game of Dungeons and Dragons ever, and it went so well! I don’t think it could have gone any better.

Six of us, including Hannah and myself gathered at a near by friends house to setup and play. Snack food was being layed out as I setup the battlemat (I wrote about this battlemat earlier) on the dinning room table along with my Dungeon Master Screen, note books, scratch paper and dice. Soon everyone gathered around the table to play.

I began the game by telling the story of Sir Robert Tembelton who was protecting the small village of Crowking. The adventures in my group where hired by Tembelton to help him protect the village from a growing evil. But when my group of new adventures arrived that found that Sir Tembelton had left to investigate a local cole mine as reports of undead threaten the farming community.

The game lasted two days. The players even used a mine cart with the dead Sir Robert Tembelton strapped to it to plow through the mine.

I had so much fun and there was so much roll playing!

To Be Continued…

Battlemat Review

Ever since I have been getting into Dungeons and Dragons I have been researching battlemat options. Battlemats can be used to help display combat aspects of a D&D game. Some people like to use them, and some don’t. I do like to use them.

Since I have started researching battlemat options I have been very disappointed with the reviews I have see on other websites and blogs. There seems to be one cream of the crop option when it comes to battlemat choices for D&D gamers. That would be Dwarven Forge sets. (Check them out on youtube) But I do find the Dwarven Forge option a little price prohibitive for me.

Now after Dwarven Forge, the choices for battlemats are a little less clear. A friend of mine got the Paizo GameMastery Flip-Mat which is a double sided laminated mat with 1 inch by 1 inch squares drawn on it. Because it is laminated you can use just about any kind of marker on it and wipe it off when your done playing. But this battlemat does come to you folded, and you can fold it away for easy storage when your not using it. However it dose not lay down very flat as a result. Which I do find annoying.

Another option (and the one I went with) is the Chessex Battlemat. This is a vinyl mat with an overlying black 1 inch square grid on it. It came with some short directions on how to keep it clean. It lays down flatter then the Paizo mat. But you do have to take a little bit better care of it. You only want to roll it up for storage as folding it will cause creases. You only want to use water based markers on it. Like the kind you would use on an over head projector. You also want to stay away from red and purple, and orange markers as the ink used in these colors to stain the mat.

The Chessex Battlemat came with some short and simple care instructions with it which I have found helpful. They also shipped to me here in Juneau Alaska very well. Using good post office packaging and peanuts to unsure the product came to be undamaged.

I have used this battlemat a couple of times now and it has gone over really well. I am glad I chose it. These pictures don’t show it very well but after a few minutes the mat dose lay down flat.

To be continued…

Songs To Learn

A few days after my band tryout I was e-mailed some songs to learn by the guys in the band.

“Police Truck” by: dead kennedys
“California Uber Alles” by: dead kennedys
“Bob” by: nofx
“Let Them Eat War” by: bad religion
“Jenny (867-5309)” by: tommy tutone
“Gods Love” by: bad religion
“Bleed American” by: Jimmy eat world
“Please Play This Song (on the radio)” by: nofx

I guess this means I have been accepted into the band. I quickly downloaded the songs they asked me to learn onto my iPod. I listen to them as much as I can. I also hook the iPod into my electric drumset when I am home and practice the songs.

A Band Tryout

Today I posted on my Twitter that I had a band tryout. I was pretty exited about this. I moved to Juneau around four years ago and brought my drum set with me thinking I would be able to join a band. That plan turned out to be a lot harder then I thought it would be. I went around Juneau posting fliers and putting ads up on craigslist. Any responses I got were few and slim. Everyone who is in a band in Juneau seems to be only able to play folk music. And though folk music has it’s place in the musical spectrum, it’s not what I wanted to play.

Last week on a whim I checked out craigslist again and found a posting from a band who was looking for a drummer and that they played punk/rock music. I gave the phone number on the listing a call and left a voice mail. A few days later I got a call back from Jeff and set up a tryout for Tuesday (today).

I have been a little nurvouse since the phone call. I really have not drummed much at all since I moved up here. I am rusty and out of shape as far as drumming goes. I was really worried that I would just make a fool out of myself.

When I showed up at the band’s practice pad I was greeted with hellos and hand shakes. The two guys (Jeff and Jessie) where really nice and funny. The drum set they had for me to play was the same Ludwig set I play on just a couple of years older. The cymbals where ok and so was the kick peddle. I swapped out the High-hat cymbals with my own personal ones. I had brought with me my cymbals, kick peddle, and drumsticks because some of the few tryouts I went to when I first moved here I ended up playing on some pretty shitty sets. I figured it would help to have a good kick peddle and cymbals with me this time.

After we got done chit chatting and tuning up our instruments we played a few cover songs which I was happy about. We played Green Day’s “She” and The Ramones “Blitzkrieg Bop”. I played the songs pretty well. I was able to hold the beat. I was a little winded after we were done but all in all I was Pretty happy. It was so good to be behind a kit again and playing music. Jeff and Jessie where really good guitar a bass players. They where really tight when it came to playing these songs.

After we were done I was told that the band had not yet picked out a name but that they really wanted to play mostly cover songs. I think this really makes sense for a tourest down like Juneau. I was also told they had another guy they where going to tryout but chances where sounding good to me that I could expect an e-mail with songs they would like to cover.