To Hit Arse Class 0

Mike Thompson

2015-07-09T03:22:00.003-07:00

This week was my father's funeral. The last couple of weeks have been a bit odd as a result, but I have found out some things about my dad that are really impressive. One of the things I found was the details of the entry exam he would have had to pass to join P Company/ 7 RHA. You can see the fitness requirements here:

http://www.army.mod.uk/artillery/regiments/24671.aspx

I am currently nowhere near fit enough to do this, but that is something I am going to change. In a years time I am going to try to do the same physical tests for charity. I haven't worked out how or where yet, I figure the first part is to get fit enough to do it. My first bench mark for it is this: http://extreme-stampede.co.uk/ a 10k with obstacles run in September, so please consider sponsoring me for that run. Alternately if I have reached my very modest sponsorship goal please consider giving to the RNLI or Stroke association both of which had meaning to my Dad.

https://www.justgiving.com/Dave-Thompson15

http://rnli.org/Pages/default.aspx

https://www.stroke.org.uk/

Cannakale NPCs

2014-11-11T08:10:00.001-08:00

The ID DM has some DMG previews that talk about generating memorable NPC’s. So I thought I would take it and apply it to some of the NPC’s in Cannakale. Here they are with more to follow :

Some of the secrets and useful knowledges are in white to prevent them from being easy for my players to see. Highlight the entries to see them.

Dianakous - Elf, Noble, (originally played by Matt) Cleric of Hades. Town Legate.

Talent: Draws beautifully.

Mannerism: Speaks very carefully

Interaction with others: Acts friendly

Useful Knowledge: Knows a secret way into level 3, and some of Hades Plans.

Ideal: Greed

Bond: Loyalty to the Church of Hades and his uncle

Flaw: secretly believes everyone is beneath him.

Pennicus - Trader. Weasly skinny, little bit whiney, rubs hands together. WantsaAdventurers to find a route down to the dungeon market on Level 2. Has a bunch of books for sale.

Talent: He is a skilled actor,

Mannerism: Talks around the subject all the time

Interaction with others:

Useful Knowledge:

Ideal: is a trade empire surpassing boundaries of normal countries

Bond: Will keep his trading house’s secret.

Flaw: Arrogance

Secret: His trading house has ended up with the Golden skull and he wants to sell it back to the Temple of Elemental evil.

Rasmus - Severed Head on Level 2. Sarcastic. Bitter about being cursed. Knowledgable. Liar.

Etcetera. Goblin spy. No one is sure what he really looks like.

Talent: Actor and “master of disguise”

Mannerism:

Interaction with others: Curious,

Useful Knowledge: He knows where the goblin king has gone.

Ideal: Whimsical

Bond: Captivated by his romantic interest in Mouse.

Flaw: He is a goblin,

Frances Gottlestotch. Skinny but always well dressed, immaculately clean, Bar keep

Talent: great at throwing darts.

Mannerism: Prone to predictions of doom

Interaction with others: Gruff

Useful Knowledge: Asura’s secret.

Ideal: Might

Bond: Protective of the town.

Flaw: Is a serial killer, usually controls himself at home (do not shit in thy own nest) goes for young men with big egos

Asura, Slim and boyish figure, big gold brown eyes long black hair, wears simple dresses, barmaid

Talent: Skilled dancer

Mannerism: Whispers

Interaction with others: Quiet

Useful Knowledge: See secret.

Ideal: Redemption

Bond: Out for revenge

Flaw: Secret Crime or misdeed.

Secret: Actually a male vampire hiding from his sire. Real name is Asher

Areobindus Big guy, potbellied, balding, builder (working on the orphanage), Wants to write a novel, lacks drive

Talent: talented writer

Mannerism: prone to singing, whistling or humming.

Interaction with others: Hot tempered

Useful Knowledge: TBD

Ideal: Respect

Bond: Protective of orphans and children

Flaw: overpowering greed.

Beppolenus slightly twitchy. always seems a little bit stoned, really likes adventurers and comes to all the carousing (if he is invited or not), Farmer. Wants to be an adventurer and will be, damn it, the moment the apothecary gets the mix right on his pills

Talent: expert carpenter

Mannerism: Twitchy

Interaction with others: Ponderous

Useful Knowledge: Knows what is in the basement of the House of Fragrant Dreams.

Ideal: No limits

Bond: Really fond of adventurers and loves what has happened to the town.

Flaw: Always seems slightly stoned.

Secret: Is being drugged by Marsheed because he knows about the stuff in the basement of the House of Fragrant dreams.

Helius, Human male looks like Pete Postlethwaite fisherman. Saving up for a bigger ship, wants to be a trader, and then lead a trading fleet.

Talent: Great with animals

Mannerism: Paces

Interaction with others: Friendly

Useful Knowledge: Has clues about any coastal location on the map.

Ideal: Greater good

Bond: Dedicated to fulfilling his personal life goal and protective of his boat.

Flaw: Prone to rage

Charito, dreadlocks, half cast, pockmarked skin. female half elf, smells odd, Alchemist / Herbalist

Talent: expert cook

Mannerism: Twirls/tugs on dreads

Interaction with others: Honest

Useful Knowledge: Used to be a druid knows things about the local druid cults.

Ideal: Life

Bond: out for revenge

Flaw/ Secret: Was a druid of the blackwood that used to worship the elements but managed to figure out how not to turn into an elemental, is hiding out in town to try and teach more of the druids.

Bruno, Big (for a halfling) burly and threatening, halfling mafia leg breaker

Talent: Perfect memory

Mannerism: Bites fingernails

Interaction with others: Rude

Useful Knowledge:

Ideal: Tradition

Bond: Protective of colleagues

Flaw: Envies others freedoms

Secret: Is working for them to pay off his brothers debts

Marsheed a middle aged, Human, thin, smells odd, Owner of the House of Fragrant Dreams

Talent: Knows thieves cant.

Mannerism: Chews something

Interaction with others: Suspicious

Useful Knowledge: can and will make poisons, and less savory alchemical mixtures.

Ideal: Independance

Bond: Drawn to a special place (his shop)

Flaw: He is very jaded

Secret: Functionally immortal he is waiting for the jailor of the things beneath his shop.

Francis, Gnome, with buggy eyes, Ex-bandit turned informant, Was spared by adventurers including Iola and Orien has turned into an informant and general hanger on at the arena.

Talent: Expert juggler, Good with badgers.

Mannerism: Excited.

Interaction with others: Enthusiastic.

Useful Knowledge: Knows where the hideout of the bandits operating on level 1 is.

Ideal: Aspiration

Bond: Loyal to his pet badger.

Flaw: Foolhardy bravery

Torendil - Elf - Noble - Former high priest of Hades, Dianakous’ uncle. Went a bit wrong during his sisters time in charge.

Talent: Great at solving puzzles

Mannerism: uses colorful oaths and exclamations.

Interaction with others: Arrogant.

Useful Knowledge: TBD

Ideal: People

Bond: Loyal to his family

Flaw: Has a powerful enemy

20 Questions for Troy

2014-11-06T04:01:00.002-08:00

Nano is going well and I am currently only a little bit behind word count but I’m keeping up ok. Feel free to add me, I am Davetrollkin on the NaNo site. Also, follow my progress here: http://nanowrimo.org/participants/davetrollkin/novels/troy-mega-dungeon

This post is inspired once more by this post from Jeff Rients (and by being a quick way to add to my word count): http://jrients.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/twenty-quick-questions-for-your.html

Here are 20 Questions for Troy and the larger Thracia setting.

What is the deal with my cleric's religion?

The most common clerics in the area worship the Greek Pantheon from the back of the DnD Next PHB. However all the mythical pantheons are active in the world to one degree or another so, if you are from a distant land you can follow that pantheon. The Celtic, Egyptian and Norse pantheons are the most common alternatives.

Where can we go to buy standard equipment?

There is a general goods (recently rebranded as Adventuring goods) store in town run by Gremag (a thin waspish man) and Rannos Davl (a fat, clumsy and abrasive man). The dungeon market on level 2 also has a “Secondhand Adventuring gear” stall run by a dark dwarf.

Where can we go to get platemail custom fitted for this monster I just befriended?

Formosos the Blacksmith in Canakale is excellent at most armour smithing. However full-plate is only made by dwarven followers of Hephaestus (some of whom live in the dungeons under Troy).

Who is the mightiest wizard in the land?

There is a chap named Merlin in Breton. The Master of the Diviners Guild is pretty high up but his name is shrouded in secrets. The Headmaster of the University in Alexandria also a contender.

Who is the greatest warrior in the land?

Good question.

Who is the richest person in the land?

Dianakous the Legate is making a shit ton of money taxing adventurers that emerge from the dungeons but no one is sure where that money is going.

Where can we go to get some magical healing?

Charito the Alchemist sells healing potions and other cure alls. The less reputable House of Fragrant Dreams also offers a selection of potions including some healing ones. The temple in town has some low level acolytes and Dianakous is a powerful cleric (if you are willing to accept the blessings of Hades)

Where can we go to get cures for the following conditions: poison, disease, curse, level drain, lycanthropy, polymorph, alignment change, death, undeath?

Dianakous is your best bet. Otherwise it would need a trip to Constantinople.

Is there a magic guild my Magic User belongs to or that I can join in order to get more spells?

There are guilds across the failing Roman empire for each of the colleges of magic. The most influential is the Diviners Guild: http://projectmultiplexer.com/2014/10/11/on-the-great-divination-wizards-guild-and-the-black-chamber/ There is also a massive university connected to the library at Alexandria.

Where can I find an alchemist, sage or other expert NPC?

Valthrun the Sage has a short tower on the outskirts of Cannakale. Charito is an odd looking ex-druid who runs an apothecary in town.

Where can I hire mercenaries?

A bunch of hirelings and hhugs hang around the arena. The next town East Bandimar also has a reputation for ne’er-do-wells so might be a good place to hire unscrupulous thugs.

Is there any place on the map where swords are illegal, magic is outlawed or any other notable hassles from Johnny Law?

Clerics and priests are outlawed in Constantinople.

Which way to the nearest tavern?

The old half finished arena in Cannakale has been converted into an Adventurer's Tavern. It has the old table map and the dungeon loot scoreboard.

What monsters are terrorizing the countryside sufficiently that if I kill them I will become famous?

The undead lords of levels in Troy. A beholder lairs somewhere in the thracian mountains. A white dragon (far from home) is occasionally seen over the Black Wood mountains. Something has made a lair (and a lake) out of the former site of the Temple of Elemental Evil.

Are there any wars brewing I could go fight in?

Yes. The Empire has campaigns of conquest in Gaul, The germanic forests and Breton. Meanwhile closer to home Greece has fallen back to petty kingdoms at war with each other.

How about gladiatorial arenas complete with hard-won glory and fabulous cash prizes?

The hippodrome in Constantinople is apparently the biggest and most prestigious in the world.

The colosseum in rome is still running games even while the rest of the city falls apart.

While in Gaul the largest arena outside of Rome has recently been finished in Lutetia (Paris).

Are there any secret societies with sinister agendas I could join and/or fight?

Yes. Most of the Gods have a mystery cult. There is supposedly a titan cult operating in secret in the town. Rumours point to the emperor being in league with the Temple of Elemental Evil.

What is there to eat around here?

Rations? Seafood. Plenty of wine.

Any legendary lost treasures I could be looking for?

Relics of the gods and fragments of the palladium are secreted throughout Troy. Along with hoards of treasure.

Where is the nearest dragon or other monster with Type H treasure?

Troy or see monsters terrorising the countryside above.

Random Ghost Table

2014-11-03T04:17:00.002-08:00


One of these is a ghost.

I have decided to use NanoWrimo as an incentive to get the entire dungeon finished!

You can watch my progress here: http://nanowrimo.org/participants/davetrollkin/novels/troy-mega-dungeon/stats

In the mean time i’m using Gygaxian democracy to make a table of random ghosts for my Troy Megadungeon. I’m looking for 3 sentences for each ghost; Who they were in life, How they died, How they escaped Hades.

Ideally i want about half Trojan war casualties and half other people who ended up in hades (people who died in the old Thracia campaign for example).

I stuck this request on Facebook to start with and got an amazing list of people who died in the Iliad and Odyssey from Everwalker. Now i’m looking to fill the rest of the list with Adventurer types to round out the selection. Drop your dead guy ideas in the comments.

Random Ghost Table

and a list of cool dead guys from the area.

Elpenor, companion of Odysseus, who sailed away from Troy with him to Circe's island, climbed up onto the roof of the witch's house whilst drunk and broke his neck falling off it when he missed the ladder. Escaped Hades when Odysseus opened a rift (via sacrifice) to seek the guidance of Tiresias.
Aias (aka Telemonian Aias), spear captain under Agamemnon, who was killed when the Trojans rushed the ships. Escaped Hades when ditto.
Adrestos, a Trojan charioteer, who was captured by Menelaos and due to be ransomed until Agamemnon threw a hissy fit about not ransoming any soldiers back and stabbed him in the side.
Elphenor, a Greek soldier, who was stabbed with a spear whilst bending down to strip the armour off a corpse (on the front line in the middle of battle, so kind of asking for it).
The brothers Phegeus and Idaios, charioteers and sons of a priest of Hephaistos. Phegeus threw a spear at Diomedes (Greek) and missed. Diomedes threw it back and didn't miss. Idaios tried to catch his brother before he fell under the wheels of the chariot, overbalanced, and they both fell to their deaths.
Gannikus the Gladiator. Devoured by drowned one zombies on the shores of the sea. Escaped the underworld by winning a dead gladiator pit fight.
Phereklos, the Trojan ship builder, who'd built the ship that Alexander used to steal Helen. He was stabbed by a spear 'in the right buttock, and the spearhead drove straight on and passing under the bone went into the bladder.' He died.
Tlepolemos, Herakles' son (so Greek), challenged Sarpedon, King of the Lykians (Hektor's friend and ally) to a duel. He got stabbed in the throat, but managed to break Sarpedon's leg as he fell.
Akamas, a Trojan captain and 'best of the Thracians', who was killed by Aias hitting the horn on his helmet so hard that the horn went through into his skull.
Teukros, Aias' half-brother and a Greek archer, who killed tons of Trojans and then tried to shoot Hektor. Hektor objected, and hit him in the throat with a rock.
Dolon, a Trojan scout, who went out spying on the Greek lines during the night. Unfortunately he ran into Diomedes, who had gone out to spy on the Trojan lines during the night. Diomedes ran him down, using throwing spears to shepherd him into a dead end. Dolon gave him tons of information in the hope his life would be spared. Then Diomedes cut his head off.
Agathe - a 12 year old girl with a lisp. Once a resident of Troy who was Bound for priesthood, she was killed fleeing the temples when Troy was sacked. Can cry on demand and likes toys.
Big Nose the Goblin, Killed by Faroque.
Douvan Stohl Gnome Archeologist. Cause of death unknown. Spirit summoned by a Hag and released into the dungeon.
Anaxagoras, a vain, arrogant, ageing bard. Poisoned by a young rival. Escaped by having his spirit form smuggled out in an Iron Flask to escape the notice of Cerberus and then used all his charm and well-learned politesse on Charon to get him carried back across the river.
Ghost of the Keymaster in Human form "I am Vinz, Vinz Clortho, Keymaster of Gozer...Volguus Zildrohoar, Lord of the Seboullia. are you the Gatekeeper?" "You will perish in flame! Soon as I find the Gatekeeper."
Ghost of Zuul the Gatekeeper in Human form. “We must prepare for the coming of Gozer” “Are you the keymaster?”
Ares - killed by Athene - very annoyed... escaped when Hades wasnt looking... still annoyed hes a ghost and not a god... hates everyone... (at least that is what he claims)
Ilium - The ghost of the spirit of the City itself. Remanent of all the souls that died when the city was sacked. Sent out by Hades to serve his purposes. (again he looks like a guy not a city)

I also have an updated Scoreboard with the players rocketing to the top after a fantastic haul from 2 stashes of treasure.

Status	Name	Score	Notes
	Dudes of Righteousness	11,010gp	Found a secret stash and The Arch of Greed. (player party)
?	The Sons of Men	5255	Went straight down to level 3 on their First delve. Have not been seen for 3 weeks. Still missing.
	The Lamenters	5009	Found a cache on Level 2 after following a treasure map. Lost all of their Hirelings and their wizard got bitten in half by spiders on level 3. Went down to the Centaur races, came back without Alice but with a good haul.
	The Iron Crows	2428	Snuck into the centaur race on level 4 and made away with a race prize. played it safe this week found some stuff on level 2. Went down to level 3 West have not returned
	The Strangers	3502	Went down to the north section of level 3 and got lost but came back with a massive pile of treasure.
	The Celts	1085	New Party from Gaul and Breton.
	The Disciples	2833	All Clerics or divine casters, apparently using divinations to find treasure.
?	Higgins’ Heroes	1075	Got some good loot but lost 3 guys to Zombies after they were trapped behind a Portcullis. Now looking for recruits or hirelings. Tried to go back into the North side of the first level but have not come back.
	Jacks	750

Are you running D&D? Want to stick your group on the scoreboard? Drop their details (party name, level, composition and total loot gained from adventuring so far) and I will add them as more adventurers flock to the mega dungeon.

Troy Scoreboard

2014-10-21T07:04:00.003-07:00

The west gate looks like this, but all the dudes are skeletons.

More Troy Megadungeon details, this bit specifically inspired by This post.

In the half finished Arena in Cannakale The Table Map has been converted to a loot scoreboard.

Adventurers returning from the depths deposit their cash on the table and the total goes up on the scoreboard.

The team at the top of the scoreboard is exempt from Adventurers tax.

The Scoreboard currently looks like this:

The Score Board

Status	Name	Score	Notes
Live	The Sons of Men	5255	Went straight down to level 3 on their first delve. Have not been seen for 2 weeks
Live	The Lamenters	3098	Found a cache on Level 2 after following a treasure map.
Live	The Iron Crows	1728	Snuck into the centaur race on level 4 and made away with a race prize
Live	The Disciples	1333	All Clerics or divine casters, apparently using divinations to find treasure.
Live	The Strangers	1296	managed a three or so average hauls
Live	Higgins’ Heroes	775	Came out with a pile of expensive furniture
Live	“Player Party”	220
Live	Jacks	150

The board is going to update each week as parties return from the depths laden down with loot.

Like in This is Thracia I have a table of rumours but I am handing them out more generously this time around. With other adventuring parties delving into the Ruins, The Scoreboard and Valthrun (the local Sage)’s big mouth information comes out of the depths much quicker.

A selection of Rumours the players have had about Troy so far are:

Pandaras The Bone Lord rules the West section of the first level.
There is a Dungeon Market Somewhere on level 2.
Centaur Races happen every month on level 4.
The South section’s gate is missing.
The Apple of Discord is hidden somewhere on the first level.
The western section of level 2 is home to a lot of spiders.
The Sword of Troy has gone missing and is somewhere in the Dungeon.
Athena’s Helm is somewhere within the Dungeon and militant Amazons are looking for it.
The Necromancer Wizard in the fort to the South of the city has work for Adventurers going into Troy.

The Board and the Rumours are both designed to encourage player led exploration and competition, giving out enough information for players to make informed decisions about where to adventure. We have had 2 sessions so far and the players are starting to put together a good idea of what can be found where on the first level, from talking to Acolytes of the various temples in the Eastern section of level 1 and some rooms with clues and riddles. It has also come to light that I was too stingy on my first pass of Treasure so I have revisited my currently finished levels and change dup some of the loot.

I currently have Maps going down to Level 4 part 2 (there are 4 sections to each level) and fully stocked levels down to Level 2 part 4. Over the first 2 sessions the players have explored about 2/3 of Level 1 part 1.

Finally here is my Player Doc if you want to follow along at home or see the rest of the House rules I am adding.

This is Troy Megadungeon

2014-10-14T06:19:00.002-07:00

Massively inspired by a series of posts from Dreams in the Lich House I am revisiting my This is Thracia fantasy ancient Greek hexmap campaign and converting the Haunted city of Troy.

Here is my Elevator Pitch:

Hades has teamed up with Hecate and turned the haunted Ruins of Troy into a road to the Underworld. He has dared the champions of the gods to break the curse of Troy and loot the dungeon of his treasures and has also stolen relics of each of the gods and hidden them throughout the dungeon. Hades has invited his allies as well as opponents of the Olympians into the dungeon for glory, profit and to challenge the champions of the Gods.

Clerics and Oracles across the realm have been receiving visions showing the perpetually moonlit city of Troy sinking into the earth. A great pit opens in the centre of the city and buildings are pushed out towards the walls and down lining the growing maw. At the base of the pit stand Hades and Hecate with a pile of divine treasures before them, with a wave of his hand the treasures fly up the pit and into the various dungeon levels through openings and windows secreting themselves throughout. A wide tunnel unwinds before them as they walk to the surface and throw their challenge into the heavens.

Adventurers from all over Greece and the Empire are flocking back to Cannakale, which Dianakus the new Legate seems oddly well prepared for. A scoreboard has been set up in the old Arena (now converted to a Tavern) tallying the hoards that adventurers recover from the depths (and allowing him to levy a 10% tax upon it)

I'm going to use the new edition of D&D and test the following House rules:

Inventory

You have a number of line in your inventory equal to your Strength score. Half your dex score of them are “Quick” slots (belt, scabbard pocket etc) that you can get to quickly. Each line takes about 1 typical item. more details here:

http://goblinpunch.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/armor-and-inventory.html

Shields will be Splintered

When you are hit instead of taking Damage you can have your Shield take the hit for you becoming destroyed in the process. Magic shields often are just disarmed instead of destroyed but that varies by Shield.

from here: http://trollsmyth.blogspot.co.uk/2008/05/shields-shall-be-splintered.html

XP for Gold

Like it says you get XP for finding treasures and bringing them back to the surface rather than killing Monsters. There is also probably XP available for completing quests and stuff like that. (I’m testing this and it will probably change when the DMG comes out)

Carousing!

http://jrients.blogspot.co.uk/2008/12/party-like-its-999.html

Extra Rewards for Bragging on the Email List and session summaries.

Gen Con 2014

2014-08-21T08:54:00.001-07:00

This year K8 and I returned to Gen Con the best four days in gaming. This year the show saw 56,614 unique visitors, busier again than last year.

Once again we went for the entire week and spent a couple of days doing touristy things before getting into the convention itself.

On the recommendation of Steve our waiter at Patachous on the park (an excellent restaurant with the tag line of “A Students Union for adults”) we went to visit the Indianapolis State Fair.

The state fair was really interesting, we saw loads of animals, lots of fried food vendors, a pioneer village recreation with a guy making stone blades and then we found an elephant ride stall so we immediately did that.

On Wednesday morning we went to the Eiteljorg museum which is all about Native American and western art. After that off we went to Will Call to get tickets, we lucked out and only had to queue for less than 10 mins. Every other time we went past for the rest of the weekend the line was at least an hour long. We spent the evening hanging out with Tammie and Charles.

Gen Con day 1.

Bumped into Keith Baker and his lovely wife Jenn over breakfast. Really pleasant catching up and talking crazy travel to get here! Made our first run on the trade hall. Then did a 13th Age adventure design seminar. The upcoming Eyes of the Stone Thief and Shards of the Broken Sky sound awesome. K8 bought some awesome boots from these guys Sons of Sandalar.

Then I went to a Feng Shui 2 seminar. We have been playtesting Feng Shui 2 and it is excellent it was already one of my top 5 roleplaying games and the new version (even in early playtest) is better. They will be kickstarting it in September and it will be released next summer. At the seminar they spoilered some art and layout and talked about the playtesting process.

K8 went to several Writers Symposium seminars with Michael Stackpole (K8 will probably write about this in the comments as she had a great time in his seminar)

Back to trade hall I went, starting in one corner I began trying to walk the entire hall. I met Wolfgang Bauer, bought the ‘Kobold’s Guide to World Building’ and the Hoard of the Dragon Queen adventure signed by all the guys on the Kobold Press stand.

I was also thinking about getting a copy of Doomtown but the AEG line was about 3 hours long all day and I was concerned about fitting it in the bag home.

Then I went for dinner with the guys from work and K8 went to a Dr. Who larp.

Dr. Who LARP was amazing! They had a recreation of the TARDIS console which, given that it was made from fold up cardboard (everyone has to travel to get here), with twiddleable stuff stuck on (from corkscrews to telescopes to wind round levers or lev-ers) was wicked!

People busting out “English” accents was also splendid. I had a fantastic time, there was loads for everyone to do and I found a small group of likely lads and lasses who formed Team Acquisition and Redistribution :D We had people in stitches as there was a lot of “sciencing” *shudder* going on and we were the comedy but sane light relief. It was probably cheating a bit to play the LARP as Georgie, or Lou(isa) Ewit as the character was called, but splendid people and made some new, and now also facebook, friends.

Day 2.

Finished walking the entire trade hall! There are a lot of traders here. Bought the Kobold Guide to Game Design, while K8 got a Guide to World Building. K8 rode a Rivet Wars tank and convinced it’s costumed protectors that she was not a spy! I got some signatures in my world guide (Keith Baker and Monte Cook). I went to the "When the kobolds met Tiamat" seminar while K8 went to make a scale mail dice bag. Once we met back up we found the Tectonic Craft Studios stand and I bought some laser cut terrain (and I would go back to that stand again several times!). Then we went to the Doubleclicks concert. In the evening we went to the Ennies! Numenera (10 Awards!), Fate and Pathfinder did really well.

Day 3.

More Trade hall! I tried to get in early to get some of the convention exclusives from PIP. I didn’t quite get to the queue in time but thankfully one of my colleagues got in on an exhibitor ticket and managed to reserve some figures for me. K8 meanwhile went to make a puppet class.

Instead of lunch we went to The Strange launch seminar. Which started with an IC brief and Shanna IC as an Estate Operative (They were apparently originally going to call them Estate Agents but Charles convinced them otherwise having lived in the UK) telling us each of them would tell us a single lie during the presentation. Cleverly her lie was the number of lies told during the seminar.

Then even more trade hall! We got cool things! Played Warmachine Tactics on the PIP stand. Chatted to Monte Cook Games crew! Bought dice! Bought a little but more terrain (and chatted to him about marketing). Found coffins for dwarven forge in a buy by weight box on the Ral Partha stand.

Saturday night was the Numenera 9th world meet up and we hung out with the volunteers and guys from Monte Cook Games again. I also trolleld Matt Strange quite hard.

He is my diet reward for my first week back. (I’ll write about that in the future)

Day 4.

Trade hall, 13th Age monster design seminar, in which we made a “Shadow Mongoose” (A Monster I never want to fight) Trade hall! K8 got some Jewelry, I felt like I had forgotten something but never remembered what.

We went for dinner in Fogo Du Chow which is a Brazilian Steak House and was Brilliant! Stop and go signs for meat!

Epic Odysseus-like trip Home with plane snow and delays and 27 hour day with 3 ish hours sleep.

Dave’s loot

The Kobolds Guides to World Building, Game Design and Magic.

Hordes Warcaster Xerxis 2 (and terrain bits to make him crashing through a wall on his Rhino like the Cool Aid Jug guy)

Some Privateer Pins

The Iron Kingdoms Monsternomicon

A signed copy of the Hoard of the Dragon Queen

Dice

A lot of Tectonic Craft Studios 3D Laser Cut terrain.

Erfworld, Decrypted Red Dwagon plush.

K8’s loot

Boots!

A companion Cube Plush

Art from [who?]

The Strange Limited Edition, Character Sheets, Players guide, Dice Pack, Xp and Cipher Deck.

Campaign Coins Shideron Medallion

Very nice necklace

Erfworld Hamstard, pins and sketch.

Dice

The Kobolds Guide to World Building

A Khiva pin from the Eideljorg Museum

A Dvd for being English

Some Novels from the Writers Symposium

Doubleclicks Album and T-Shirt

Gen Con T-shirt

A Wrist Dragon

Some Red Dragon Inn Badges

A The Strange Badge Holder

Hairband with leather flower

Kobold Press Patch

Scale Mail Dice Bag and spare scale mail stuff.

Things I saw that I will buy once they reach here:

Doomtown

Shadowrun Crossfire Deckbuilding game

Cash & Guns new edition (With John Kovalik art)

A Copy of The Strange for myself

Numenera Technology Guide (For K8)

The Warmachine Celephax book and models (for Nats)

If you fancy going to GenCon next year I wrote a guide on how to get there. It is still mostly up to date though the Hotel rooms had gone up slightly and the Dollar was slightly weaker so overall we spent about the same amount as last year.

HEMA

2014-07-02T03:36:00.000-07:00

In January I took up Historical English Martial Arts with The English Martial Arts Academy in Guildford. It has been loads of fun and I have improved a lot in the 6 months we have been training.

We are training with The Backsword and working from George Silver’s Manuscripts.

About half of the Grading are Prize plays where the prospective Gradee fights all comers with all the weapons that he is trained with.

These typically get filmed and here are some Videos of me fighting people in Prize plays.

This is the first one I fought in shortly after I was allowed to start sparring:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OztozkMOu0 (It starts with a fight with someone else and I am in the 2nd half)

A month or so after that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0a0ntRwdvQ

and this one is from last month after much more training and practice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENlB7r45evY

Our instructor Oz is also setting up a distance learning plan for Backsword which will be launching from here: http://backsword.org/ I’ll post again when it goes live.

If you are nearby and interested in giving it a go the first lesson is free and we train on Monday evenings at The Guildford Spectrum from 19:00.

The Crossroads Hexcrawl

2014-01-23T01:55:00.001-08:00

Inspired by this overworld /underworld series and fond memories of This is Thracia. I have started putting my ideas for another Hexcrawl onto paper. Basically all the players walk up to a crossroads with a creepy abandoned inn, shrouded in mists, the roads peter out and the inn is surrounded by wilderness.

The idea is to delve out into the wilderness and find out what is going on.

My plan is to allow any Flaisnails legal character (as in started on 0 xp and leveled up normally)

A plan for starting it is to just stick a crowdsourced hexcrawl in the direction of each road and make weird border areas and then go through and secrete the plot information throughout the hexes. Otherwise I might end up going through and cherry picking my favorite bits from all the ones I have seen.

Having written all that down it feels a bit like a hexcrawl Ravenloft and that is quite cool.

I will probably put my hex-map from 13th age in it, or at least bits of it.

It should also have NPC factions doing stuff out in the wilderness. So I should write or steal some NPC factions, possibly weird echoes of the one from the starting characters homelands.

It would also be cool to be able to learn to do stuff with the mists to let you get to places you have already been more easily or use teleport circles or elf gates or something.

When a character enters the campaign they should tell me where they are travelling from and too

and then a location representing both places gets added to the map, getting to your destination (and clearing it if applicable) gets you something cool.

Demon Monkey Temple

2013-11-28T01:09:00.000-08:00

This week I weigh 15 stone. This is the 13th Age Dungeon my players have sepnt the last couple of sessions exploring. The map came from the excellent Dysons Delves book and can be found on his website here.

Demon Monkey Temple.

All the walls are carved like Angkor Wat with similar root, vines and tree things growing across the ceilings and walls. All the doors are badly made out of the odd wood growing along the ceiling and walls.

Background

Like the film Forbidden Kingdom, The Monkey King made fun of someone (probably the Crusader or another Icon without a sense of humor.) and got petrified. Luckily he made shadow clones of himself using his hairs just before hand and they set out to free him from his petrification. This Dungeon is the lair of one such hair. Unfortunately this one found a copy of The Red Book and used it’s diabolic knowledge to make an army of demon Monkeys. However, then he got sealed into the dungeons under his temple. Having explored the Mysterious Temple on the surface, the players have found a way in to the dungeons below cleared an entrance and are heading inside.

Level 4 Dungeon

I had it set at The Champion tier because my players all have a bunch of incremental advances and magic items.

You get into the demon monkey temple proper through a well that was blocked by a wall of stone. The well drops 80 ft down into the pit in room 1. You could also bust in through area 16.

Rolling all the prayer wheels in the demon monkey temple makes a cloud platform that lowers down to the dungeon. It’s missing part of the cloud and glitchy because one of the Prayer wheels is missing.

Room 1: Pit fighting room

This room was used for pit fighting, the pit has sand on floor. The upper edge of the pit is covered in a dozen dessicated/ mummified monkeys just pointing at the players. Each time they enter the room the Dessicated monkeys are opposite the entrance they used pointing at them.

A Flying Monkey is perched on the lip of pit, it flies off as they climb in. Later in the dungeon it can be found making crude Voodoo dolls of the players. (Room 10) (The monkey’s leaving through the apparently empty upper area gives clues to the presence of secret doors.)

Room 2: More prayer wheels and carvings on diagonal wall.

The carving shows a wizard opening a portal using a large broken egg to power it.

The portal shoots rays into his monkeys and they gain special powers, then it shows him and monkeys with special powers fighting toad men.

Room 3: Monkey skull soul storage preparation room.

There is a table with a headless monkey body on it. Another table standing next to it has restraints. There is a poster on the wall (made of some sort of skin) with a Chakra map and directions on how to properly extract Souls, by moving all the soul energy to the head and then popping it off. Probably worth a fortune to an infernalist.

Room 4: Room full of translucent monkey skulls with tiny glow worm like lights inside. They are Monkey souls.

Room 5: Room locked and barred from the outside with three bars. Inside Monkey Ghouls lie in torpor. They are woken and freed if the flesh golems in 6 are activated.

Monkey Ghouls. (re-skinned Ghouls) (1.5 x per player)

Room 6: Prison guard room.

2 Gorrilla Flesh Golems are here. They have bamboo extendable arms so can attack people who are Close. They only attack people trying to leave the room and spend 1 attack each using their expandable bamboo arms to break the bars on the door to room 5 letting the Ghouls join the fight.

Room 7: Cells with dead toad creatures in.

Room 8: Altar with big stone egg broken open on top of it. The walls have carvings of Monkey King on both walls showing him bursting out of the egg and making fun of The Great Gold Wyrm. The wall behind it is burned and is where the portal opened. Messing with any of this room opens the portal and fire gorillas and monkeys come out. Then they are joined by the Fire Monkey Wizard from room 23. (Fire Monkey and Gorilla stats are in the back of the 13th Age Bestiary)

Room 9: Exploding Barrels. Lamp oil that has sort of gone off and become volatile. Remember that Matthias is on fire.

Room 10: Room full of broken dolls. A winged monkey from 1 flies here and starts trying to make dolls of the players. By the time the players get to him he has made a Doll of someone who rolled a 5.

Winged Monkey (reskinned Despoiler Demon)

4th level caster [demon]

Initiative: +9

Horns and daggers +8 vs. AC (2 attacks)—5 damage Natural 16+: The despoiler can pop free from the target.

R: Doll whispers +9 vs. MD (one nearby or far away enemy)—15 psychic damage, and the target is confused (save ends) OR the target can choose to avoid the confusion effect by taking 6d6 psychic damage to clear their head . . .

C: Sow discord +9 vs. MD (2 nearby enemies engaged with the same creature or with each other)—one target makes an at-will melee attack against this power’s other target Limited use: 1/day, as a quick action.

HP 52 AC 19 PD 14 MD 18

Doll swarm (4 per player)

3rd level mook [BEAST]

Initiative: +9

Warning Choking Hazard+8 vs. AC—5 damage

Natural 16+: The target is hampered until the end of its next turn.

Natural 18+: As above, and the target is also stuck until the end of its next turn.

Clinging: Enemies take a –5 penalty to disengage checks against the swarm.

AC 19 PD 17 MD 13 HP 10 (mook)

Mook: Kill one Doll swarm mook for every 10 damage you deal to the mob.

Specific person’s Doll

As swarm but only attacks that person: +9 vs MD: 15 Psychic Damage and Confused for 1 round, may take 6d6 damage instead of being confused.

Room 11: Room full of finished dolls. There are lots of toad men dolls, a black dragon doll, several demon dolls and a knight doll. These are all one use items that attack and confuse the person the doll was made of. There is also a scrying font shaped like the Trigrams, with sticks on the side of the pillar. These can be used in a scrying ritual to get a picture of a person and a fortune. An Int (Searching) type check can get you a doll of someone you recognise. Bonus points for doll of a player's parent (for a 5)

Room 12: One prayer wheel set in the curved corner surrounded by statues of monkeys and burn marks (one is pointing). If the prayer wheel is spun it has one of the following effects.

Sweat Catches Fire
Grows monkey Tail
Must point at whoever is speaking
Become immune to normal fire
Grow monkey wings
Wall crawling
Gain special monkey king martial art move. this is super effective against the demon minotaur monks. (Like the Rogue Swashbuckling talent but once ever, also a good excuse to multi class Monk)
Petrified - last gasp saves etc.

Room 13: Mummified monkey hearts in canopic jars in alcoves on the far wall. Creeping sense of doom if they are messed with.

Room 14: A pair of gigantic (King Kong size) zombie gorillas. Not yet animated. Space for Monkey Skull Soul gems in chest (From room 4).

Room 15: A barrel of normal 1HD Monkey Mooks live here. They just sort of look at the players as they have been magically asleep until the wall was dissolved. If attacked they scatter whooping towards 12, 17, 18 and 19. Then they turn up throughout the Dungeon occasionally throwing things or making noises and annoying the PC’s. If befriended cool stuff happens. Opportunity to turn the Dungeon Die up or down.

Room 16: Alcove with robed monkey statue facing stairs with palm outstretched. If you go past it and then try to come back you are blocked if you have killed a monkey. You could allow a saving throw against this. The stairs lead up and are blocked by another wall of stone and is a potential exit or entrance to the outside.

Room 17: Yellow Musk Creeper Tree/Fiendish Orcwort crossbreed. Its dead but still has monkey zombies hanging from it. One of its flowers is intact and players could get a dose of the powder. The branches and roots run out of the room and are the source of the weird roots and branches all over the walls in the rest of the dungeon.

Room 18: Infectious Demon Monkey Swarm. The room is warm and the trees and vegetation poking through the walls are shriveled. There are 4 alcoves with 4 red eyed, red skinned monkey statues carved as if leaping at someone. Between each alcove is a prayer wheel, spinning them wakes the statues up. If a statue touches any monkey it makes them Demonic as well. Use stats for Dretches. Demon monkeys keep pouring out of the alcoves at 4 per round until the prayer wheels are set back into order.

On the prayer wheels are carved 4 shapes that correspond to sounds. The puzzle is solved by choosing the hooting sound which closes the portals.

The alcove with the pit trap looks like it used to have a giant prayer wheel in it (like outside room 19) but it is now missing. The Wheel’s remains are broken open and lie at the bottom of the pit trap. Diligent searching of the prayer scrolls in the remains finds you a scroll of a random cleric spell (written in monkey)

Secret door at bottom of pit trap leads to other caves and The Underworld.

Room 19: See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil monkey statues. The room periodically goes silent, then dark or no one can talk.

The alcove just outside the north exit has a giant 6ft tall Prayer Wheel made of stone filling the space. It is hollow and full of prayer scrolls. A metal thing in the ceiling rattles against the carvings if it is spun making loads of noise and increasing the Dungeon Die by one.

Room 20: Hanging from Orcwort tree roots and branches in the ceiling are 8 small demonic Multiplying Monkeys. They are hostile. Each time a monkey is killed the remaining monkeys become stronger. Starting at 1HD then 2 etc. They also grow and are psychically linked, so mind magic works very well on them. [link to blog post with the stats]

Room 21: Treasure vault hidden behind secret doors from 20 and 22. The door is metal, locked and trapped with a lightning rune. Inside the room The Monkey Paw Wand of Wish (3 wishes interpreted as negatively as possible) is on pedestal in center of room surrounded by golden bricks set into the floor. The runes turn anything that passes over them to gold. Once the ward is dispelled anything not gold to start with reverts back to its normal form.

Shelves have runes and scrolls and other Treasure including tiny prayer wheels with a scroll inside.

Room 22: Room full of Prayer Wheels. If spun anti clockwise from the door they open the secret door. Each one tells part of the legend of Monkey up until his petrification and the monkey hair’s quest to create an army of demon monkeys to free him. Sadly this is all explained in monkey language (Whooping, chattering etc.). Spinning all the wheels makes loads of noise and increases the Dungeon Die by one.

Room 23: Fire Monkey Wizard’s lair. He has some treasure, his room is otherwise very spartan. It has clues leading to the location of the petrified monkey king (probably somewhere in the overworld) he also has a copy of The Red Book. (try to link to it). (Fire Wizard stats are in the back of the 13th Age Bestiary)

Room 24: The room of simian enlightenment. There are a number of monkeys all sat in big stone towers meditating, trying and elevate their celestial selves. They got summoned ages ago and learnt kung fu. They are immortal already so they are trying to improve themselves. If disturbed by players making a lot of noise in room 25 they will come out angry.

Diplomacy could convince them to teach someone kung fu, especially if anyone can put in a good word with any celestials.

Fiendish Half Minotaur Monkey Monks (1 per player)

Large 4th level troop [humanoid] Initiative: +8

Punch or horns +9 vs. AC—27 damage, and one of the minotaur’s allies can pop free from the target as a free action

Kung Fu Charge: The attack instead deals 40 damage on a hit if the minotaur first moves before attacking an enemy it was not engaged with at the start of its turn.

Blood frenzy: Minotaurs gain a +4 melee attack bonus against staggered enemies.

Nastier Specials Durable: The first time each round the minotaur takes damage, prevent 2d6 of it.

HP 94 AC 19 PD 17 MD 13

They have The Lost Scroll of Demon Monkey Style Kung Fu.

Room 25: Room entirely surrounded by the weird tree roots shaped into a dojo. The floor is springy with oddly protruding branches etc.

Room 26: Armoury:

3 racks of heavy Glaives, Staves and other polearms.

Gorilla shaped Heavy Armour. Belongs to the Wizard guy was going to be for his champion.

+2 heavy armour of Heedlessness: You gain a +4 bonus to all defenses during your first turn in battle. Quirk: Needlessly provocative, often beats chest. Armour has space for wings on back.

More ways to use Icon Relationships

2013-11-25T05:32:00.002-08:00

In my This is Thracia Campaign I made great use of the Party like it’s 999 table from Jeff Rients, a Rumour table and Random Encounters. In 13th Age you can get a lot of the same results using Icon relationship rolls with the advantage of them already being about something your layers care about (at least in theroy as they put the points in that icon relationship).

So here are some things I’m going to use Icon relationships to do in my Red Wastes Game:

Rumours:

Either about the Warband that corresponds to the Icon rolled in the Ruins of the Golden Citadel or the location of nearest settlement with the appropriate relationship on the Red Wastes map with some sort of Hook for what is going on there.

Example Rumours: (that use up a bunch of my players outstanding Icon relationship rolls)

Emperor:

Unrest has started in the Town ruled by The Resplendent Gemstone.

This is being caused by sleeper agents working for Hale and Lynch (Agent Provocateurs who the party handed over to The Tower, The Archmage’s secret police, several session ago) It isn’t the only town it is happening in across the Empire.

The Three:

The Black Dragon whose mate was killed by adventures has been gathering allies in the lakes of the western end of the Jungle to assault their fortress. [Player Chooses an NPC] said he saw it flying towards the ruins of the Golden Citadel.

The Three (Positive) or The Great Gold Wyrm:

Dinosaur Clerics are trying to capture Dragons to regress them to a Holy Dinosaur state. They have a village south of the town rules by The Splendorous Gemstone and north of the jungle.

Prince of Shadows:

The “Merchants” that turned up looking for Meldryn are actually a mobile thieves guild that do loads of work for Draco Emporium. You might be able to buy them off with Meldryn’s remains.

The Diabolist:

A Demon Hunter is hunting nearby! His name is Carnago and he is famed for making Demons fight other Demons. (On a 5 he is probably hunting Matthias or Ash for leverage on their relatives)

The Elf Queen:

The political rift caused by the emergence of the Lord of the Wild hunt has spread from the Queens Court. Elves across the land are having conflicting dreams and choosing sides.

The Dwarf King:

Many of the elite Living Dungeon hunters of the Dwarf King have been going missing... some of them have turned up again later riding living dungeons and covered in Demonic blessings and grafts.

The Orc Lord:

Shamans have been leading bands of Orcs across the empire stealing Ritual Reagents for some powerful magical working. Some say they are still searching for a key part of the ritual.

The Archmage:

Horizon is up in arms because of A Spell Called Catherine.

The High Druid:

The Wild Hunt has been unleashed! If it can be turned against the bounds of civilisation then the power of the wilderness can only grow. Many followers of the High Druid are seeking The Wild Hunt either to join it or turn it against her enemies.

Escaping the dungeon

Roll your Icon relationships...

1-4: You escape. Phew!

5: Uh oh Wandering Monster or Trap messes you up! Roll on one of the tables linked above.

6: Hey Cool, Treasure! Roll on the random treasure table.

Carousing Mishaps. a 5 with the prince of Shadows or the Dwarf King? Roll on Jeffs Table and gain an Incremental advance if successful.

Shields will be Splintered: got a 6 with a Martial Icon? use this rule. Got a 5? Have it used against you.

Multiple Monkeys

2013-11-21T05:56:00.000-08:00

Today I weigh 15st 3lbs. Down 3lbs just by sticking to diet and exercising for 5 to 30 mins each day.

In my 13th Age game a group of my players are currently exploring a Demon Monkey Temple. Once they have finished exploring it I’ll post the whole thing. Meanwhile here is one of the monsters they fought and a one use item they found several of.

Multiple Monkeys.

8 Demon monkeys hanging from the Ceiling.

They all howl and gibber with one voice as they are actually one Demon in many bodies.

They start as 8 Level 1 Monsters.

When you kill one the remaining 7 become 2nd level. Growing in size and strength. This continues until the final Monkey is a Level 8 who will wreck faces.

Multiple Monkeys

8 x Level 1-8 Monsters

Howling Claws

+ (attack of monster of current level) Hit: Damage as per level.

One mind many bodies - Vulnerable to Psychic Damage

Cumulativly Stong - Every time a Multiple Monkey reaches 0 HP all the remaining Multiple Monkeys gain a level.

AC - as Monster of current level

PD - High defence of current level

MD - Low defence of current level

HP - As monster of current level

I used this 13th age GM Aid by Jim South to track the stats as they got harder.

Mani Wheel Scrolls

Filling these hand held prayer wheels with specially prepared scrolls allows anyone to cast the scroll with a simple flick of the wrist. However doing so consumes the drum of the Mani Wheel as well as the scroll.

Back to Fitness

2013-11-19T03:13:00.001-08:00

This week I have restarted my diet and fitness regime having had it slip massively over the last few months. One of the reasons I started the blog was to give myself some accountability on my weight loss as well as to have a place to write about gaming.

Today I weigh 15st and 6 lbs. I have a short Diet Bet started with a colleague at work, I did Kettlebell Swings and restarted the 100 pushup challenge this morning and Thursday I’m going back to Tai Chi.

I’ll update my weight loss and exercise each Thursday and that will also give me some momentum to have something written to go with it.

My goal is to get down to 13 Stone in the next 3 months.

Demon Armour and a new use for Icon Rolls.

2013-11-12T02:31:00.002-08:00

Typically worn by the champions of the Demon lords attempting to escape the Abyss, these suits of armour, cannot be removed without a ritual related to exorcism or removing curses. Such rituals often cause the Demon to revert to it’s true form and start a fight.

They are created by the Demon lords by either skinning Demons alive or polymorphing them directly into the suits.

The armours quirks reflect the Demon used to create it and the armour might cause mutations especially if you over attune. Over attunement might also cause the Demon that it is made of to gain a foothold in the wearer's mind.

If the Armour wearer or any of his companions has an Icon relationship with the Diabolist then 5’s and 6’s get more interesting.

A 6 could grant access to a random demonic special ability for one fight while a 5 could involve the Armour rebelling against the wearer or requiring a sacrifice of some kind (blood, souls, gold other Player characters) to keep working.

Here are a couple of examples.

Robe of Imps:

This Robe is made from the skin of a dozen imps stitched together,

Light Armour +2 (can be worn by a spellcaster with a Diabolic Icon relationship as no Armour)

Flock of Imps 1x Day as a move action the wearer turns into a flock of Imps and flies to one nearby place he can see.

Quirk: Each of the Imps has a slightly different thing it wants. One might need moisturising, one might hate getting wet, one might constantly want the wearer to sas or back talk everyone nearby, one is a coward.

When you over attune all the imp skins have something they want, and the more extreme ones start getting a say Pyromania, a desire to accidentally poison your companions.

Balor Plate

This suit of full plate Armour is created by Polymorphing a Balor into a sticky alive looking suit of Plate mail.

Heavy Armour +3

Catch on Fire: 1/day: Like a wild Balor’s Fiery aura the Suit catches fire. It deals 1d6 Fire Damage per point of the escalation die to all enemies engaged with the wearer. If you have an outstanding 5 with the Diabolist then this fire damage might also hurt you.

Using Icon relationships to generate re-rolls

Inspired by FATE I was thinking about a way to let 5’s and 6’s on Icon relation ship rolls provide re-rolls and compels.

If you can relate your 6 to the roll either via your one unique thing or the relevant Icon relationship you can spend it for a re-roll.

5’s first have to make life more complicated for you and then can be spent for a re roll (again both should relate to your one unique thing or the relevant Icon Relationship)

I’m going to test this out in play tonight.

Cranmore Con!

2013-11-04T04:32:00.001-08:00

This weekend I ran a small Games Convention in my house as part of Playing Every Game I Own.

We played loads of games this weekend.

Ascencion Rise of the Vigil


Frag Gold Edition

Pathfinder using the Pregens from the Pathfinder Society OP system. We chose randomly and delved into a buried castle.


Three Dragon Ante

Savage Worlds. (A Spelljammer style flying dungeon pirate type setting made up form the players feedback).

Then on Sunday we played Dan’s Mage/Cortex hack based on The Mage the Ascension Job by Dave Chalker.

So with them I have played the following game from my collection so far:

Ascension
Zombie Munchkin
Love Letter
Cthulhu Fluxx
Penny Arcade Deckbuilding Game
Jungle Speed
Cockroach Poker
Carcassonne
Dominion
Swashbuckling Adventures
Shadowrun
Apples to Apples
Castle Panic
Villa Palleti
Dobble
Feng Shui
Pathfinder
Three Dragon Ante
Frag
Cortex/Mage
Savage worlds

6 Session DnD-ish campaign.

2013-10-25T09:05:00.001-07:00

Inspired by Cthulhu being in the Pathfinder Bestiary 4 (it’s out this week!) I came up with this short campaign idea while selling it to my customers. I’ll probably run it either after I have Played Everything I own or else run each adventure in a different system and use it to tick 6 RPG’s off my list. This would also work as a one level per adventure Campaign for 13th Age by adding an adventure about each of your characters into the mix. The plan would be as follows:

1st adventure

3rd ish level in Pathfinder, (1st level in 13th age). Cultists kidnap PC (maybe a player who can’t make the first session)/ loved one/contact/person about to reveal the plot etc. Players go on to investigate in a city and fight in short dungeon under/above/as part of a less well known part of a city. This could be catacombs, dungeons, rooftop thieves area, the Shades style dubious quarter, a maze etc. Players man up and gain contacts, allies and a better understanding of their local home.

2nd adventure

6th ish level. Clues or cut scenes lead to one of the many towns full of fish men on the sea shore type adventures. Fish man leader/human contact is one PC’s Father. This could be obvious from a PC’s heritage or maybe explain any foreshadowing I’ve put in from previously in the adventure e.g. PC falls in a well but is able to survive longer, not great with sunshine etc. Players adventure and gain allies.

3rd adventure

9th ish level. From an end of last/beginning of this adventure reveal, it turns out cultists are in charge of something important. A PC’s contact (from the first adventure?) tells them that some massive authority figure (leader of the city from the first adventure) is actually a cultist and the PCs will go and fight that person/creature etc. At end of session one PC is put in charge of the thing. Players kit up and go and save the city.

4th Adventure

12th ish level. From interrogating the baddie in the last session or his minions and clues the PCs find, it turns out cult also has backing of rival nation! This means War! What is it good for? A DnD adventure! Go recruit monstrous allies, perform devils bargains then pull out the square bases for a big battle! Players ally up and go and save the country.

This could be alluded to in previous adventures where people in foreign colours are wandering around or maybe a treaty is being worked on, or all the treasure turn up in foreign minted coins.

5th adventure

15th ish level. Turns out while there was a big distracting war the leaders of the other country /cult sacrificed loads of people in a big ritual to summon a giant monster (like Cthulhu). Bad giant things base turns up (Moon gets closer, Island rises from beneath the sea, Volcano erupts. Destroying players home base for maximum emotional involvement). Players deal with this problem and have to go back into first dungeon from campaign where secret chamber has opened revealing Zords/magic weapons/powerful dead guys etc. Players gain awesome special moves and go and save the world.

6th adventure

18th -20th level (add mythic or epic levels from the cool toys they got last time)

Go to Giant Monster’s secret lair and fight them. Players gain enlightenment, death and maybe go to create their own city, kingdom, world or cult!

Profit!

Playing Every Game I own by the end of the Year.

2013-10-09T09:05:00.000-07:00

Posts have been a little on the light/ non-existent side over here while I have been moving house and sorting some stuff out. However we are now moved in to a new place. We have some shelves up and some games on shelves and are making good inroads into sorting the place out.

One of the things I thought of as I was unpacking my many games is how seldom I play some of them, then I thought about how cool it would be to play all of them!

So that is my new plan, ~~in December~~ by the end of the year I will play every game I own.

The first thing I need to do to be able to do it is to make a list of every game I own and then make sure there are enough hours in ~~December~~ the year to do so. I might also arrange a mini games convention in the new place in December to help play them all!

All the games I own, (That I can remember right now)

Boardgames

Ascension Deckbuilding game
Battle Lore
Bang
Go,
Mah Jong
Cards; Crib, Poker
Dominos
Carcassonne
Apples to Apples
Cash n’ Guns
Descent
Dominion
Talisman (it’s K8’s but should go on the list)
The AD&D Trivia Game (I should throw this out)
Three Dragon Ante
The Duke (This is Natalies so I might be able to get away without it)
Settlers of Catan, Rivals for Catan,
Ticket to Ride Europe
Frag Gold edition
Order of the Stick boardgame (I might leave this one set up and play it over the course of the month to get it finished)
World of Warcraft collectible miniatures game (again I might get rid of this before I start)
Villa Paletti
Zombie Dice
Dragon Dice
Love Letter
Castle Panic (This belongs to Mike I should give it back)
Fury of the Clansmen
Dobble
Cockroach poker
Munchkin
Wings of War
Cthulhu Fluxx
Jungle Speed
Doctor Who Card Game
Shadows over Camelot (The Recent Tabletop about this was great)
The Pathfinder Card Game

RPGS

13th Age
Dungeons and Dragons (Any edition probably Next)
Pathfinder
D20 Varients: Arcana Evolved, Spycraft,
Lamentations of the Flame Princess
Shadowrun
Numenera
Savage Worlds, Deadlands, 50 Fathoms, Hell on Earth,
Deadlands
Rune RPG
Feng Shui RPG
Mouse Guard, Burning Wheel, Burning Empires
Fate, Spirit of the Century, Dresden Files,
Fighting Fantasy
Warhammer Fantasy RPG
Star Wars Edge of the Empire RPG, Star Wars Saga RPG
Leverage
Dark Heresy
Smallville
Eleventh Doctor RPG
The One Ring Rpg
Exalted
Iron Kingdoms
Heroswars/ Heroquest
Over the Edge Rpg
Weapons of the Gods
Gumshoe, Night's Black Agents, Trail of Cthulhu, Esoterrorists, Mutant City Blues
Cthlhutech RPG
Qin the warring states
Dread RPG, Jenga

Wargames

Warmachine, Hordes,
Warhammer fantasy battles (I might not actually own rules for this, and I would have to improvise Armies.)
Battletech
Arcane Legions
Full Thrust
Mobile Frame Zero

Card Games

Magic the Gathering
Legend of the Five Rings (War of Honour) CCG and RPG

Other Games

Killer

I will no doubt need much assistance to accomplish this so if you would like to play or run one of the above games let me know. Also feel free to fill the comments with the number of these games you own.

The very talented Dr Bradbeer had this to say when I posited the idea on Stalker Book:

“One or two board games/CCG a day is plausible, as long as you don't mind the risk of the girls strangling you by the end of the month. The wargames too if you're prepared to give up weekends. Adding in the RPGs is insanity.

UNLESS, you got people to write you one-encounter RPG campaigns with a pregen character and a total time limit of half an hour or so, which you then played, by Facetime if necessary, one a day or so. That might be a pretty cool project. I'd be up for helping.

OR, Crisis in Infinite Timelines, where you create a character without stats, who then hops from game setting to game setting, a new one every day, for a new encounter....”

So If you want to make an short adventure/encounter for one of the games above let me know!

Numenera and Age of Scorpio

2013-09-06T07:29:00.003-07:00

We started character gen for Numenera on Tuesday evening. The character gen is very quick and satisfying and 7 of us had characters done very quickly.

In Numera you create a character using three main things; types work like class, Descriptors add more detail and Foci give you a bunch of special moves. So you make a [Blank] [Blank] who [Blanks]. You can find more info about it here: http://www.numenera.com/character-creation/.

I created a Charming Jack who Crafts Illusions after discovering that my first two choices were unavailable. I intend to play him like Loki in the Marvel Thor film.

My first choices were A Quick Jack who Cuts People and my second was an Enigmatic Nano who Melts Faces. Both have Foci or Descriptors that were obviously accidently left out of the main book.

In the spirit of satisfying myself (and in case I die to a horribly misunderstood piece of Numenera or the machinations of my rival Robin.) I immediately contacted Charles to demand that these oversights be corrected and he assures me that the request has been sent on to the creative department at Monte Cook Games (this is what friends are for!)

Most people get a certain number of cyphers at the start of play, these are useful Numenera which the characters can use for a wide variety of buffs, weapons, items etc. We used the Numenera Cypher deck of cards (that we got at GenCon) to randomly determine what people had for Cyphers; players pick an image card and a descriptor card and choose which of the 2-3 descriptors they use for the item.

While we were making characters for it I was strongly reminded of Gavin’s recent book Age of Scorpio. (There is a short story set in the same universe up on his publishers blog here: http://www.gollancz.co.uk/2013/04/6135/ )

The rest of this post is going to be full of Spoilers for Age of Scorpio. So buy and read the book first, before finishing this post. Or treat it like a preview and go get the book once you finish the blog post.

The story is set in three distinct times; Ancient Briton, Now and After the Fall. Initially there’s no real link between them but as the story builds the knock on effects of each time period begin to appear.

As the book progresses the magic of the past and in the present day is explained as the ubiquitous tech of the Far Future. This is what got me thinking about it while we were making characters for Numenera. The hook of the game is the Arthur C. Clarke quote “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” which is an underlying theme to Age of Scorpio.

Don’t get too attached to the characters as Mr. Smith has taken a leaf from George RR Martin’s book on how to treat your heroes!

It has some excellent Gun Porn and a fantastic tribute to the Thriller music video that Gav first unleashed on me in a Hunter Game.

So I decided to Numenerasise some of the characters from the book:

Beth is a Tough Glaive who is looking for her sister.

Britha is a Mystical Witch (Nano) who Rages.

Tangwen is a Graceful Jack who hunts with great skill

Vic Matto is a ‘Sect Glaive who is obsessed with Humanity.

No idea what that means? Look here: http://www.numenera.com/character-creation/

I’ll write up descriptions of the Foci and Descriptors I just made up in a future blog post. Or post your versions in the comments for the chance at Prizes (I’ll harass Gav for prizes, at the moment there aren't any.)

Also in related publicity type things for it Gavin arranged for Chloe to shoot a variety of the Characters from the book (that i stole the pictures of for the above characters) and you can see the behind the scenes results of it here.

Can you tell me how to get to GenCon?

2013-09-03T03:44:00.004-07:00

K8, Nats and I went to GenCon and we are going to go again next year, you should come as well because it was awesome.

Next year the show is on the 14th -17th of August : http://gencon.com/

Here is a rough breakdown of costs and what you should think about to get there:

Flights. We were recommended DIALAFLIGHT www.dialaflight.com

(0161-953-5000, fax 0161-932-1919, Waterside Court, 1 Britannia Road, Sale, Cheshire, M33 2AA ) by Gav . Morgan our lovely and extremely helpful sales adviser sorted everything for us, she was pleasant and efficient throughout.

Check where your departure terminal and point are, in our outward bound journey these were the further possible point from where we entered which lead to things being needlessly exciting!

Travel.

The flights cost about £900 ish each, but we had booked late, they are cheaper earlier in the year so book as early as you can! I reckon we can probably get them for closer to £700 if we book this year or before April.

We flew with United Airlines (part of the Star Alliance) and were very impressed, a nice easy journey throughout with no snags and all the luggage in the right place! We had flown with Delta previously and had a horrible time in terms of delays, uncomfortable flying, unhelpful staff and not getting to the con until the Thursday lunchtime, and then not getting luggage until Friday! All of which was obviously rubbish! Don’t use Delta.

Luggage

There is a luggage allowance of 23kg there and back but you can take 2 pieces of hand luggage into the cabin with you. This meant that on the way back our packed suitcases had light bulky stuff in and our messenger bags (GenCon merch of course) and backpacks/small suitcases were stuffed with books and manuals, dice and heavy stuff in the cabin with us.

If you take an extra case back with you it will cost $100, if you are over your luggage allowance it will cots $200.

You can ship things home and there are shipping stand points at intervals throughout the convention as everyone always buys too much!

Transport costs: We got a shuttle bus from the airport to our hotel, it’s set up specifically for conventions and drops off at all of the nearby hotels in the centre of the city. This cost us $10 each. On the way back to the airport we got a cab from outside the hotel, this cost just over $30 for the three of us. In both cases this was easy and there were loads of taxis and a regular shuttle bus.

When to arrive and leave: We went for the entire week Monday to Monday. if you don’t want to get that far I recommend arriving on Tuesday evening, spending Wednesday getting over jet lag and then picking up your badges and tickets on Wednesday when the Will Call line opens. We left at about 3am Monday morning, so we got the entirety of Sunday at the show and then chilled out and packed in a leisurely fashion.

Visas, the ESTA:

The ESTA, this is an odd little US Visa style thing which EVERYONE non American needs. Make sure you use the US government site. This costs about £10 and a % of this goes to the US tourist people to promote America. It can all be done online and you usually get confirmation there and then.

Ensure you have a passport and that it has at least 6 months left on it otherwise they are not keen to let you in and you can’t get an ESTA.

Hotel. We stayed at the JW Marriott but there are loads near the convention centre. The booking for the rooms opens on a specific date, your best bet is to keep an eye on the Gen Con website for when that will be. This year the hotel booking opened in January, so expect it to be similar next year. This link should update when they have info about next year. Our hotel had a room rate of $220 per night but many are cheaper and you pay for a room and can then put as many people in it as you can fit.

Badges. A 4 day pass cost about $75. Badge registration opens on 31st January and goes on for a couple of months during which time you can get a refund if you foolishly decide not to go. We bought our badges first as a commitment thing to show we intended to do the expensive stuff later!

Tickets.

Event tickets are for a specific event i.e. seminar, game, show etc. Its worth getting them even though you can use generic tickets or if the event is free. This is for 2 reasons, firstly it lets them tell how many people were interested and booked for the event and also then allows them to see who turned up. More importantly if you are registered and hand in your ticket you get put into a draw for each seminar to win free stuff, often signed by the author/creator etc. Which rocks!

Generic tickets cost $2 each; a normal session of a game costs about one ticket, some things cost more than that. A lot of events sell out pretty quickly so have an idea what sort of things you want to do in advance and book them as early as possible on the Gen Con Website.

Trade Hall of awesome

I also suggest leaving plenty of time to look through the trade hall as it is very difficult to see the whole thing. It is MASSIVE! It makes London’s Olympia look like a bit of a shed! There’s also loads of games and demos happening so you’ll need time to play as well as shop and chat to artists, designers, craftspeople, gamers, etc.

It might be worthwhile making a plan to see the things you NEED then the MUST HAVES then look at the things you might like etc.

Eating

We ended up spending about $50 each a day for food, but we ate out a lot, so it would be easy to do this for less. A word of warning, cheese is a food group, although its odd cheese and veg is rare or deep fried and battered and THEN covered in cheese unless you order a salad.

Steak & shake: http://www.steaknshake.com/

There are cheap places like Steak & Shake which ought to be visited just for a fast food diner experience. Its pretty much chips burgers and liquidised knickerbocker glories posing as milk shakes! Cheap, filling and cheerful!

Patachou in the Park: http://www.cafepatachou.com/

This is just over from the Hyatt this lovely place is breakfast/brunch specialist open from 7am ish to 3pm. Its always busy during GenCon days so leave plenty of time to queue and eat!

Chinese Food: Its in the entrance to the shopping precinct, I can’t remember the name of the place but food was awesome and all the staff had dressed up for the GenCon, we got served by a very lovely, VERY camp, Harry Potter who thankfully didn’t try and attempt an English accent!

Le Peep:http://www.lepeepindy.com/

A lovely little place for breakfast/lunch, extremely friendly staff, MASSIVE amounts of food and amazing pancakes the size of our head served with your choice of anything and a pint of maple syrup!

In the con = not too bad, but can be pricey and not very varied, although the sandwiches were huge and more than enough for lunch! Beware convention pizza its a bit odd as American cheese is a bit strange too!

Food vans: These are a mixed bag, with loads of variety, mostly very good and more importantly open from early till very late.

Shopping Centre food court: This was actually pretty good and surprisingly quick and cheap. It does get busy though!

The Palamino: http://www.palomino.com/

close to the shopping mall on one of the many cross road intersections. This was overpriced, slow service and pretentious and when the food arrived it was pretty mediocre. Ok for a drink but don’t both with the food, there was a reason it was nearly empty and everywhere else was heaving.

Spending money. Bring as much as you can. We budgeted for about $1000 each, it will never be enough because even if you buy everything you want to you will then need to ship it back or pay $200 for a suitcase over 23kg or $100 to bring an extra suitcase back home!

Total cost: We spent about £2000 each. You can probably do it cheaper with a little bit more effort.

Should I bring dressing up gear?

Well K8 won a costume prize in her normal clothes so you might not need to, but there is loads of cosplaying and a Costume contest. Loads of people dress up as well as sporting the latest Geek/Nerd T-shirts, its very welcoming for people in any costume.

You can see coverage of this year's costume contest here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G99AYs0tuxc

What is there to do?

Absolutely loads, as well as all the gaming slots and demo games available in the trade hall there are non-gaming activities aimed at spouses, seminars on writing, game design and loads more. There are parties, live music and an awards ceremony. Even in the evenings all the lobbies of the nearby hotels fill up with people playing games.

We got to Indy early and saw the Indianapolis Zoo, the Museums and walked some of the White River complex. The Colts American football stadium is also very well worth the $10 for the hour and a half of seeing all over the Lucas Oil stadium.

Everything is within walking distance but you need to think of it as more of a hike as everything is really spread out.

What is good to see/get to early?

Living dungeon events sell out very very early so book them in January if you want them.

Typically several distributors will have a small number of a very cool new thing that they will have flown in ahead of the normal delivery. This year the Pathfinder Adventure card game sold out in three hours and Fantasy Flight Games normally has something that goes very quickly. If there is a new release you really want from the show make getting it your first priority.

Industry vs. public events: There is a retailer day on the Wednesday but we didn’t do anything for it. Otherwise most of the events are open to the public and it is very easy to be able to talk to industry people on the floor of the convention.

Thanks to K8 and Nats for contributing loads to this post.

Gen Con!

2013-08-22T02:24:00.000-07:00

I went on holiday to Gen Con! It was Awesome! Here is an incomplete list of all the cool things I did when I was out there:

Getting out there - Due to a misunderstanding about how time worked I ended up running for the plane with 2 kg of chocolate. Meanwhile as I outdistanced the girls they got a lift on a cart.

We stayed in the awesome looking JW Marriott Hotel which had been built two years previously for the Superbowl.

Tuesday -

We went to Indianapolis Zoo, stopping on the way to look inside their museum. At the zoo there was shark petting, a dolphin show and lots of other animals.

Wednesday - spot the industry insider, K8 and Nats went on the stadium tour, We also picked up our badges and tickets from the reception and that went extremely smoothly.

Thursday - The show officially opened, the queues to get into the trade hall were massive and there was lots to see in the trade hall and the games hall.

We went to a seminar called Why Shadowrun is Awesome.

We went for dinner with Charles Ryan whom I used work with at Esdevium (and more importantly who ran one of the best campaigns I have ever played in Magica, a D20 Ars Magica hack that Charles wrote. There is a blog that had session summaries in somewhere on the internet.) He is now working as the COO of Monte Cook Games who have released an awesome looking Game called Numenera at the show. While we were arranging dinner we bought several copies of Numenera and met Monte and Shanna who were lovely and got invited to the Numenera launch event.

At about 16:00 We went to the Numenera Launch where we discovered that I had a “Trustworthy Accent”, and it was revealed that Bruce Cordell was joining the team at Monte Cook Games. We also got a special limited edition bonus Cypher Deck with a bunch of extra cards in it.

Later in the evening we went to see a Nerdlesque performance which was extremely funny and entertaining. It was hosted by The Glitter Guild.

Friday - I went to a work meeting with the guys from Cool Mini or Not, who were awesome and have some excellent games. Their new miniatures game is extremely pretty and is called Wrath of Kings. It is kick starting now. One of the faction commanders is a guy riding a Squid:

That night I went to the Ennies with Charles, where we interview bombed the EN world livestream of the event, while the girls took part in a world record attempt and they made a new record for the number of people playing Settlers of Catan at once. The girls joined us in time to see the final few awards being given out. You can see a list of the Ennies winners here.

Saturday - Nats, K8 and I went to try the Foam Fighting Arena. It is a really interesting way of fighting, They don’t allow head hits but also don’t pull their blows. The weapons are made to stand up to hitting people at full force and are slightly softer than the UK equivalents as a result. We each went roughly even with our opponents which was pretty good considering they were much more familiar with the style. I also smashed one of the guys across the head because I had forgotten the no head hits rule and he was not guarding his head.

Nats stopped for a massage and K8 and I went on to have a quick look around the trade hall again, there we chatted to the guys that make US style foam weapons and then got interviewed by The Dungeon Bastard, our bit is about 1 min 30 sec in.

That afternoon we went to the 13th Age launch seminar. Which was very cool. Saw the Doubleclicks live, and they were hilarious. This song reduced K8 to speechless tears of laughter.

We met and got books signed by Dave Gross,

Went to the Numenera Launch party, where Charles introduced us to the lovely Cindi Rice (who is the producer for Dungeon Bastard) and loads of other interesting industry people.

Sunday - The show closed at 16:00 on the Sunday so while Nats spent the day getting demos of various Mayfair Games and became a Knight of Catan I ran a 13th Age Demo on the Pelgrane Press stand. K8 and I looked at the Shadowrun 5th ed books and ended up getting one. We chatted to Dave Gross again and spent most of the last of our dollars.

Coming home was very smooth.

Next time - Phones that work in America, taking more people and playing more games.

Here are a load of my photos form the holiday: https://plus.google.com/photos/100343142332087709654/albums/5914868812643633985?authkey=CJOay-eL5ai5cQ

Other places you can look for info on Gen Con:

Dungeon Bastard coverage: http://www.youtube.com/user/GenConVideo?feature=watch

En World coverage: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpbzuJtxfbQKMwZM76CHtCg2QWKb6xJ1r

Short list of the cool stuff i saw there that you should go look at:

13th Age

Numenera

Shadowrun 5th ed

The Duke boardgame from Cryptozoic (they had a giant version Natalie bought the game off the back of the Demo)

Star Trek Attack Wing - DS9 promo

Cool mini or not Wrath of Kings kickstarter (dude riding a squid!)

New Star Wars X-Wing ships

Shadowrun Crossfire Deck building game (not out yet - due in september)

What I did at my LARP event.

2013-08-06T13:57:00.000-07:00

Inspired by a comment by my mate Martin, I have decided to post about what I do in an LT mainline event. In an effort to show people what my game (how I play) is like.

The Lorien Trust is a massive sprawling system with ten factions and ten ish guilds all of which support very different styles of play.

For the last 10 years or so I have played in the Scouts Guild. For the last 5 years I have been writing plot for them and have been leading the Guild. This year I have a new role and am in the process of stepping away from that bit of the game which I have played for the last decade. I’m finding it quite tricky, so in addition to talking about my game I also want you to talk to me about yours.

Some of the things I did at the Moot (this is a brain dump so bear with me):

I arrived IC at the event ‘live’ from a plotted fight and dropped a load of plot on the scouts. I was then sent to a mind healer.

I watched a Ritual that Rath did for the Harts. As the ritual finished the mythical White Hart of Albion showed up, not so mythic it seems!

I bought some scrolls which I put in a pouch in order to forget about them for a year, its not like I think they age well like wine or anything its just that its become a tradition!

I binned 4 expired scrolls because I had put them in a pouch a year ago and forgot about them.

I went to all the NPC meetings (normally I miss a couple).

I chatted to NPC’s and players from the various Martial Guilds to see how they were doing, I listened to a great conversation about Elemental Forges at the Armourers.

I chatted to Sparkey about how hard (tough) he was.

I got in a good scrap with some Caligar worshippers and tried to Save Wellspoken’s Character with 12 other brave/foolish heroes.

I hid from the Archon of Good under a tree (he is unreasonably peeved with me).

I made the Scouts Guild Linear more complicated by sending an hysterical, unarmed woman in love with the bad guy along.

I had awesome roleplay with the family of said hysterical unarmed woman as well as the liability in person after the linear.

I listened to players open a complicated, heavily trapped puzzle box before watching them pour over clues.

I watched the result of the ritual warning bells tolling and Satuun (MAJOR, HUGE baddy) doing a ritual. Then nodded to Dark Reaver who is less unreasonably peeved with the Scouts and I.

I watched Sai and Promethean Dave have a fight while I provided commentary about it to the guild.

I nearly died laughing thanks to K8, Nick and Becca

I got involved in the big final fight, I borrowed a pole off Donk and had some really good scraps.

Thanks to Dave for a great pole/knife fight, Brian for keeping up with me for the first half of the fight, the five factions that charged to my rescue when I got dropped by Becca and Slieve for turning up to help me when I was fighting near the Harts camp towards the end.

What do you do for the 3-4 days you spend at an LT mainline? Pick five things you do at most events and let me know here.

I wrote a post after the Gathering last year about levels of live roleplayers it’s here: in it I awarded levels for trying lots of different parts of the game. People also suggested other things that could award levels.

http://tohitarseclass0.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/new-targets-and-levels-of-live.html

As of Right now I am level X so at the Gathering I am going to level up!

Roleplaying Games!

2013-08-01T02:00:00.000-07:00

I really like Roleplaying Games. A lot of people continue to talk about how Roleplaying is dying and becoming a smaller part of the hobby business but I think that in part that is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Talking about roleplaying and more importantly playing it with people is what is going to get it to continue. I don’t think it is dying, I think the rest of the hobby is getting stronger and Roleplaying isn’t increasing at the same rate. To that end here are some cool roleplaying games that are out recently or coming soon:

Star Wars Edge of the Empire RPG has been selling strongly since its release. It uses custom dice like the third edition of Warhammer Fantasy, which gives its system a depth that isn’t as easy to get with more traditional dice systems. We are expecting a restock of the Dice and GM’s Kit and Beginners Box in the next couple of weeks.

FATE Core and FATE Accelerated. These are some of the nicest presented Roleplaying books we have at present and both are an excellent introduction to roleplaying. Both are available on Bits and Mortar so that you can get a free copy of the PDF’s if you buy it in store. They are also available online for pay what you want. FATE is one of the best systems I have come across for modeling fiction and has a Character Generation system that is entertaining enough to be played on its own.

Only War is the most recent Roleplaying release for the Warhammer 40k universe. It features a lot of the rules updates that we are expecting to see in the Beta of 2^nd Edition of Dark Heresy.

The two most interesting Roleplaying releases coming soon are:

13^th Age is a Love letter to Dnd, Written by Rob Heinsoo and Jonathon Tweet, designers of 4^th Ed and 3^rd respectively this game is the best iteration of D20 I have played to date. The book is already available on Bits and Mortar so if you pre order it form a shop they can give you the PDF. Shops should have the physical books in the next couple of weeks. Pelgrane press and Fire Opal media are also working on an Organised play program that will be launching soon. I like this game a lot and it is what I am currently running. If you want more information check out my Blog or the Resources page on the Pelgrane website.

Numenera is the new game and setting from Monte Cook. It had a massive Kickstarter campaign and is being used as the basis of the new Torment Video Game. You can get a free copy of the PDF by emailing a picture of a pre order receipt from you to: preorders@numenera.com

I also really like Shadowrun and there is a new PC game and 5^th edition of the roleplaying game out in PDF with the Physical book out by the end of August. They also have an excellent OP system and the new season of Shadowrun Missions is set in Chicago.

I originally wrote this for a restock list at work and edited it slightly to put it up here.

What is your favorite roleplaying book or system?

Running and Shadowrun Returns

2013-07-31T01:08:00.001-07:00

I weigh 13st and 9lbs, I have hit my target for the July Diet Bet, Due to 2 larp events and a Trip to Gen Con my goal for August is to finish it no heavier than I am now. Then I will work on losing more weight in September.

One of the things that has helped me kick the last few pounds is that I have actually succeeded at starting to run. Thanks to Dave I found Zombies, Run and downloaded the 5k training version. It is a game and a story overlaid on an interval running program, and so far I have done 3 of the runs and the introduction (which is just a free run with the introduction of the story overlaid on your music) had me accidently run to the next town as they kept telling me I was being chased by Zoms.

Sometime last year I backed Shadowrun Returns on Kickstarter by Hairbrained Schemes. It released last Thursday and I spent the weekend playing it. I really enjoyed it, the game is quite simple and short but very engaging. It plays a bit like Neverwinter Nights with guns. Having finished the Campaign i’m now investigating the level editor, and in a wave of nostalgia it made me go look at the new 5th Edition of the RPG.

This Video also about Shadowrun Returns made me chuckle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXVO1HCNQ8M

Also 12 days to go until Gen Con!

Golden Age of Piracy Game

2013-07-19T01:11:00.001-07:00

My Friend Mark is running a monthly Golden Age of Piracy game using the Swashbuckling adventures D20 variant. The next session is this Saturday and this is a recap of what has happened so far:

Session 1 (We played this on holiday in Scotland)

Everyone is taking ship from Portsmouth sailing for the new world.

The Ship is the HMS Redoutable heading for Virginia.

The other notable passengers are Brinna O’Leary an Irish Herbalist, Flo and Six a pair of Highwaymen, Miss Eleanor Greyburn an educated lady, Sir Anthony “Girl” Duboir, a youngest Noble son sent overseas by his family and Bella a hard looking sailing woman.

Several weeks of sailing later Six heard a scream and we found a dead body in one of the 2nd Class cabins they had been stabbed in the neck.

The Murder is investigated by Lft Thorgil a Marine officer seemingly separate from the authority of the Naval Captain of the ship.

Something odd is going on with the marines, they are guarding something in the hold.

More murders, someone gets thrown overboard in a storm.

Miss Eleanor Greyburn is killed by terrible Poison gives us a letter to take to the Explorers Society in Port Royal. Tells us “The Order” are trying to stop her.

She asks us to take a letter to a map maker named Samuel in Port Royal.

Then the cry went up that the Spanish are attacking!

Session 2

Fight the spanish! Boarding action goes well thanks to us. However the Cannon exchanges do not favor us and despite a strong showing Captain Havelock Surrenders.

We all get locked in the brig.

One of the other prisoners was magically disguised. Her disguise runs out and she is taken to the Spanish Captain. It turns out she is Milady De Winter the world famous spy and operative of the Order.

Luckily Pirates attack, a stray cannon shot allows us to escape the vrig and we sneak back aboard our ship and turn its guns against the Spanish.

The Pirates are led by Henry Morgan and he offers us a place among his crew.

The Pirates take possession of both ships the HMS Redoutable is renamed The Valkyrie and given to Agneth Olafsdottir to captain.

We get to Port Royal and find Samuel the cartographer. He invites us to join the Explorers Society and gives us cool magnetic coins so we might know other members.

Turns out Captain Morgan is already a member so we join his crew as a cover.

The note that Eleanor gave us turns out to lead to a lost island that we must get to ahead of the Order.

Session 3

We need to get to this island before The Order

Turns out the island isn't on any charts, “I guess that is why its lost?”

There is a fisherman that knows how to get through the reefs around it is but he is in prison on Tortuga.

Samuel wants us to rescue him.

His name is Stefan Lefluer, we can recognise him by his shaven head.

Tortuga has been held by the French for the last 5 years. The governor is named Betrond D’ogern and he has been in charge for 4 years.

We carefully planned the break out.

Sir Ant and Bella went to visit the Governor and got drunk either with him or with his staff.

Six and I got into a fight and got arrested.

Brinna and Anna used a Bell that Flo got made in port royal before we left as a shaped charge on a weak section of the fort’s wall.

There is explosions and fighting guards!

We get the guy and escape using a firework to signal to Captain Morgan.

Session 4

Stefan can guide us through the reefs to this island.

Captain Morgan is in a terrible mood because he lost his hat in a game of cards.

We board a passing merchant ship and Captain Morgan steals the merchant’s nicest hat.

The Island we are looking for is really just a sand bar and is only visible at low tide but it is surrounded by reefs so you can only get there at high tide.

On the island we found a tar sealed stone entrance to some smugglers caves

the tide is coming in so we have to explore fast! (Mark ran it as a real time Dungeon Crawl, it added an awesome sense of urgency to the session)

We explore! Quickly!

There are traps, a water filled passage, a room with a floor covered in bones with rats, a talking spider and then dead guys!

We fight the dead guys.

We find all the treasure including a part of a map made of gold

“we make our maps out of paper, they make their maps out of precious metals, imagine what they make their precious metals out of!”

Then there were bad guys waiting for us outside the dungeon, they killed Stefan.

The bad guy is an empty suit of plate mail from the black forest in germany, Samuel later tells us that the order uses them as shock troops.

We go back to Port Royal and show Samuel the bit of the map, it leads to the city of Eldorado!

Random 13th Age Character Gen

2013-07-05T01:42:00.001-07:00

Stats.

4d6 drop the lowest in order.

Races/Places:

Roll	Where you are from
1-5	Human from one of the cities
6-10	Human from outside the Dragon Empire
11	Human reaver of the Iron sea
12-16	High Elf from one of the cities
17-21	High Elf from the Queens Wood
22	High Elf reaver of the Iron sea
23-27	Dark Elf from under the Queens wood.
28	Dark Elf reaver of the Iron sea
29	Wood Elf from another wood (pick one)
30-34	Wood Elf from the Queens Wood
35-39	Wood Elf from the Wild Wood
40-44	Half Elf from one of the cities
45-47	Half Elf from outside the Empire
48-52	Half Elf from The Queens Wood
53-57	Dwarf from Anvil
58-62	Dwarf from Concord
63-65	Gnome from Concord
66-68	Gnome from Glitterhagen
69-71	Gnome from Shadowport
72	Half Orc from Cloudhome
73-77	Half Orc from one of the cities
78	Half Orc from The Frost Ranges
79	Half Orc reaver of the Iron sea
80	Halfling from Concord
81	Halfling from Shadowport
82-84	Halfling from the three towns
85-89	Halflings from one of the cities
90	Asamir from Santa Cora.
91	Asamir from the ruins of the Golden Citadel
92	Asamir from Starport
93	Tiefling from outside the Empire
94	Tiefling from the Demon Marsh’s
95	Tiefling from the Red Wastes
96	Tiefling reaver of the Iron sea
97	Warforged from Dwarf lands
98	Warforged from Horizon
99	Dragonborn from Drakenhall
100	Dragonborn from Starport

Separate table for the cities

1	Axis
2	Santa Cora
3	Shadowport
4	Concord
5	Glitterhagen
6	Horizon
7	Drakkenhall
8	First Triumph
9	New Port
10	Anvil

Outside the empire table:

1	The Red Wastes
2	The Demon Marshes
3	The Giantswalk
4	Moonwreck
5	Cloudhome
6	Frost Range
7	The back of a Koru Behemoth
8	The Iron Sea Wall

If you roll something undefined you get to define something cool about it for my campaign.

Class:

Pick the one that uses your highest stat or roll:

1	Barbarian
2	Bard
3	Cleric
4	Fighter
5	Paladin
6	Ranger
7	Rogue
8	Sorcerer
9	Wizard
10	Monk

Icon Relationship:

You get one relationship with the Icon associated with your home city if you have one.

The Prince of Shadows loves games of chance (like rolling your character randomly) so get a 1 point relationship with him. Then roll a d12 for the other two points:

1	Archmage
2	Crusader
3	Diabolist
4	Dwarf King
5	Elf Queen
6	Emperor
7	The Great Gold Wyrm
8	High Druid
9	Lich King
10	The Orc Lord
11	The Priestess
12	The Three

Sample Backgrounds:

Have one suggested by where you come from and then make the rest up in play based on the first three things you are asked to roll.

This article also has some interesting non standard background ideas: http://www.pelgranepress.com/?p=11434

Now make up a one Unique thing.

If you are stuck for one look at this thread: https://www.pelgranepress.com/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=988

Gear:

1d6 x 10 gp and your class’ default armour and a weapon.

pick 3 items an adventurer would own.