March 30

Shackled City Adventure Path #2

So another session is wrapped up and the players have been meeting some of the other residents of Cauldon while disposing of the loot they have collected.

They’ve also managed to have one of the npcs arrested for being an accomplice to a crime.

Trouble is now they have done this they are questioning their motivation for continuing their exploration below the city.

I have a week to try and get them back on track with the campaign and I think I may just have the way to do it.

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Category: fantasy, RPG | LEAVE A COMMENT
March 28

Shackled City Adventure Path

After a brief hiatus I’m once more back in the saddle as gm and starting to run the Shackled City Adventure Path for my group.

I’ve debated with other gms the pros and cons of such large scale adventures before and this is going to be my first real attempt at a long term D&D campaign.

It’s also the first time I’ve had the players control multiple characters, two each just do we have the required four player party basis which became the norm for D&D 3.

I’m cheating slightly and I’m using Pathfinder as my core rules and the players seem to be happy with the rules set.

We’re only a couple of sessions in and things are going OK but there are still areas that need to be addressed; like the combat manoeuvres. Despite the design team trying to simplify them there are still questions over whether or not you would actually use grapple or disarm unless you really had to.

Before embarking on running this mighty adventure I did search the web to see if any conversion notes had been published and I didn’t find many at all; those that I did find were incomplete although there was an amazing one which I bookmarked but apart from that I’m having to convert on the fly.

While I’d love to post details of how they’re progressing I have a feeling that my players may decide to read this blog and see if I accidentally leak a spoiler or two from each session.

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March 23

One year on

So it’s been a year since I started this blog and I’m pleased with how it’s turned out so far.

Once I started I realised how much I missed writing for pleasure; most of my penmanship has been dull technical stuff that while serviceable isn’t something that I can point to and say “I did this”.  Which is  very unlike this blog my main outlet for my creative urges although  my muse seems to be driven by my sickness, something that I find very amusing.

I thought it was also time to expand upon my origin story that I first mentioned here, while searching through a box of books it turns out that I had accidentally deceived you all and my first purchased RPG turns out to be the basic edition Marvel Superheroes RPG.  I purchased in 1986 while on holiday after being driven to find it by the amazing adverts in the back of the Marvel comics I was reading.

I think I forgot about buying it as I never seemed to know what to do with it or how to get other people interested.  Bear in mind this was before the days of the internet and gaming magazines in the UK were had to get hold of from the local newsagent.

What really grabbed my interest in gaming was a programme I saw on LWT back in the early 80s called “South of Watford” and presented by Ben Elton.  I remember watching him go to the Games Workshop store in Hammersmith and talk to the store manager before later on playing some D&D.  Five years later I would be in that very store and buying my first games.

Games Workshop then was a different store, one that sold other peoples material and long before the advent of the Games Workshop hobby which is what they’re best known for these days.  In those days you could pick up a licensed copy of Runequest, Traveller or even Call of Cthulhu.

Moving behind the screen.

After being a player for a short period of time I decided to try being a gamesmaster and looking back on those days I think it was my sheer enthusiasm that kept me going.  I was at one point gaming five nights a week running a different game each night with a different system.  It was during this time that I started to understand what I liked to run; science fiction piqued my interest more than fantasy did and I loved the four colour superhero genre.  Much Traveller and Marvel Superheroes was played along with a side dish of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

The Critical Miss years.

It all started simply enough with an open call for players at a local comic shop; the owner knew me and the people organising the event and  I decided to turn up and try to play with a different group of people.  Let me tell you those first few weeks were a great time, we all brought games down to play and since we never really that organised you could never count on the same group of players for each game.  I took my chances and dusted out Paranoia second edition and over the course of several weeks I ran through the published adventures I had bought.  The players had fun trying to kill each other and deal with the game forms a friend had photocopied.

Slowly the group started to crystallise from the raw elements we threw at it, after a few months we lost a player and the venue; we found a new home in a building owned by the father of another player and we played in that cold cramped warehouse amongst the boxes of paper.  Summer came around and then we started to lose players until by the following October we were d0wn to a handful and we moved once again to my place.

I found myself running more games and with a stable group we could try to play campaigns together.  I was now playing twice a week with two different groups and this became once a week when the two groups melded together.   We lost more players as well; one went off to university, one moved away and one left for personal reasons I won’t go into here.

It was during this period I broke out Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and embarked upon the Enemy Within Campaign.

The present.

I’ve been playing with another group of friends online using Roll20 and that’s what caused the genesis of this blog back with this first post . 

 

 

 

Category: Cyberpunk, fantasy, RPG, sf | LEAVE A COMMENT
March 18

Kickstarter – Beasties & Bygones: Raunchy Comedy RPG – Dungeon World & 3.5

EU-FRIENDLY! An RPG & a guide to creating comedic, satirical adventures! Play a one shot game or run a season! South Park meets D&D!

I’m not sure if you could sustain a comedy campaign, believe me I tried back in the day when I tried running Steve Jackson games Toon.

Still at least you get the Dungeon World version of the game which is somewhat of a bonus.

Category: fantasy, RPG | 1 Comment on Kickstarter – Beasties & Bygones: Raunchy Comedy RPG – Dungeon World & 3.5
March 14

RPG Blog Carnival March 2015 – Best GM Ever

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The subject of this months Blog Carnival is Best GM Ever and is being hosted by Creative Mountain Games

Over the years I’ve only played with a handful of gamesmasters, some of whom have been very good while one or two I haven’t got along with as we have very different ideas and playing styles.  I would like to think of myself as a good gm and that is something one of my players was telling me after each session; his feedback was really good and I’ll admit is was something of an ego boost for me.

So it is hard for me to pick out one specific GM and say they are the best overall since each have had their own unique ways of doing things.   One of my friends managed to create such a spellbinding atmosphere, it was almost like being hypnotised and we were rudely snapped out of this state when a door in his house suddenly slammed shut; I don’t mind admitting that I jumped out of my seat when that happened!

During the Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0 Night City Blues campaign there was one particular session that really sticks out as I managed to weave two or three sub-plots into a scenario along with the main plot for them to discover and I received some very positive feedback about that.

When it comes to crafting my own scenarios I tend to go with the three act model as this works really well for me and gives room for creation of sub-plots.  This style also works if you decide to play a pulp based game and I cribbed plenty of advice from the Lester Dent Master Plot formula, if you haven’t seen it, it’s worth a read and I was able to use this advice to create a random pulp adventure generator.  I’d like to share it with you all, but as it’s based upon a few commercial products I can’t as not only would it violate copyright, it could also hurt the sales of them.

 

 

Category: Cyberpunk, Modern, RPG | LEAVE A COMMENT
February 24

Kickstarter – Laser Etched Miniatures for Table Top Games and RPGs

One thing I have always liked when playing games is to have a physical representation of a character and the monsters on the board.  I guess this stems from the ill fated Cyborg Commando game where my perception of things didn’t match the players perception of the situation.

Even though I do love miniatures I’m a terrible painter and I just don’t have the skill or patience to do them justice.  Playing online is a different matter as I can make use of tokens and I discussed that in this post.

Which brings me to this Kickstarter by Daft Concepts: Laser Etched Miniatures for Table Top Games and RPGs .

These sets of laser cut, laser etched, wooden miniatures are the perfect blend of detail and affordability.

The images they have certainly look good and the bases have a slot into which status tokens can be inserted.  What puts me off is the shipping costs, so perhaps I’ll stick with my current method of play, paper tokens stuck to coins so they don’t blow away.  🙂

The funding period ends on the 10th of March, so you have time to decide if they’re right for you.

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February 20

Kickstarter – The Monster Alphabet, with GM Gems

Goodman Games is Kicstarting another project, this time for a pair of system neutral books The Monster Alphabet, with GM Gems described as:

Designing monsters is as easy as A, B, C! Illustrated systems-neutral RPG supplements for creature creation and GM idea generation.

I already own PC Pearls and the Dungeon Alphabet so I’m sure that these two projects will both be first rate.

I’ve backed Goodman Games before and they delivered the goods before so I’m confident that they will make this happen.  As usual, all Kickstarter risks apply so don’t blame me if it doesn’t work 🙂

The deadline for the Kickstarter is 11 March so you have plenty of time to go and become a backer.

Category: fantasy, RPG | LEAVE A COMMENT
November 23

RPG Blog Carnival November 2014 – Races

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This month the Blog Carnival has a new home over at Johnn Four’s site http://www.roleplayingtips.com/races-rpg-blog-carnival-november-2014/  and he has the honour of hosting this months topic : Races.

I’ve got quite a few systems sitting on my shelves and for the most part all the pseudo-European Medieval fantasy worlds have the same sorts of non-humans inhabiting them; this I can sort of tolerate but they also appear to have the same racist outlooks on life.

Take for example Elves, Dwarves, Orcs and Goblins.  In many of these books these three races all hate each other but no reason or explanation is even given;  I would hazard a guess that  the popularity of Tolkien’s works may be the core influence here.   This gives a rather similar feel to each world where no thought is given to why they may hate each other.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay does give an explanation as to the rhyme and reason of the hatred.  I can see Dwarves and Goblins hating each other as they exist in a similar niche, just like the Elves and Orcs.  Why then do Dwarves and Elves hate each other since in the cookie cutter fantasy realms they don’t occupy the same regions; Elves like the surface and the forest, while the dour Dwarves toil away deep in the bowels of the Earth.

Adding racial hatred doesn’t mechanically unbalance the races but gives you a wealth of roleplaying opportunities to embrace.

In a recent game I played a Half-Elf who was raised by the Elves and so he had a hatred of them as they treated him as a second class citizen and he had a hard time being accepted as he was caught between two racial divides.  It was tricky to pull off but I found it very satisfying to be able to rail against the expected norms of a Half-Elf.

I would suppose that Half-Orcs have it worst of all, being a creature born of two normally warring sides, trying to fit in would be a real challenge to play.

While we’re at it, why stop with pairing similar bipedal creatures, why not have two different races and mix them together?  You may baulk at this idea but is this any stupider than a creature that is half-owl and half-bear?  You could always use the excuse of a  magical experiment gone wrong or what about a Frankenstein’s monster composed of bits and pieces stitched together and animated by a magical ritual?

If you wanted to do a similar thing in a sci-fi game, depending on what technologies are used you could easily do it, accidents with matter transporters seem to be fairly common in one TV show so why not use that as an excuse?

WARNING

Using roleplaying like this though should be handled carefully and thoughtfully before you decide to embark on a character like this as there is always the temptation to push the envelope, you don’t want to have your PC swear and curse just because you say its “in character” as I find this is a poor excuse.  Treat it like a seasoning, you don’t want to over salt something as you can ruin it.  Going back to the Half-Elf, he never directly attacked other Elves, he just acted superior to them and made a few cutting remarks in their presence.

Until next month.

 

 

 

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