Games I want to run or play

I have a massive surplus of games I want to run and or play. So recently and starting with my Iron Kingdoms campaign I am moving to run more shorter campaigns of a variety of games.

so this post is about the games I am or want to run.

First up I am running an Iron Kingdoms RPG game. The players are all part of Giovannis Black Cat Mercenary Company The Wild Cards Mercs and are investigating the destruction of the rest of their company. So far their investigations have had them face off against Cryxian forces, meet an Ordic Castellan who is also an Arcanist, See a relic made by one of Morrows Ascendants, and met a crazy old man who thinks he is Giovanni and fears for his soul.

Deadlands the Flood- I started this game ages ago and still really enjoy playing and running Savage Worlds.

DnD Next and This is Thracia - The recent playtest packets have not been inspiring me in the same way that the earlier ones did but I am still following the development choices closely. I also really enjoyed running in the real world (so to speak). Another idea I would be interested in doing for Thracia is to run it again (or carry it on with a relatively stable group and see how that changes the experience.)

13th Age - I’m probably going to hold off until I have the main book in print, or the main book and the 13 True ways expansion. I also probably want to run a couple of campaigns in this one to carry on with my 13th Age of the Hungry Phoenix Campaign and one to try the system in a more traditional Fantasy World.

Dresden Files - this one is largely inspired by The FATE core rules kickstarter and the recent release of Cold Days. Having read more of the FATE core that I got for backing the kickstarter this has moved up and I am now keen about running anything with FATE and want to shoehorn aspects into my current IK game. (the results of which might make another blog post.)

I’m playing in John’s 2nd Ed AD&D Game in his homebrew setting. This game is excellent and will get a post of its own at some point.

Pathfinder - Having finished a full Adventure path [link] I am reluctant to run another pathfinder game, but it is hands down the best game for players that I own. I recently got the Thornkeep dungeon from the Pathfinder Online Technology Demo so I might run that at some point. [links]

Fiasco - This is a fantastic GM less game. Ceri wrote about the first session of it we played here.

Dungeon World - Dan has been talking about this alot and it sounds very cool

Quest Rpg - Simon Rogers from Pelgrane press talked about this game at Dragonmeet and it sounds very cool. A collaborative cartography game where you make a actual map and a relationship map as you play.

What are you playing at the moment? What do you want to run or play?

Feng Shui and Diet Bet.

I finished the diet bet at 13st and 5 lbs. I lost my target of 8 lbs however I did it in 5 weeks not 4. I was not alone in missing my target however neither of my 2 colleagues hit their targets so all wanting to carry on with the motivation we gained in november we have carried the bet on into december. My new target is to get to 13st by Friday the 21st of December.

On Saturday I went to Dragonmeet, a games convention in Kensington. I Got my copy of Feng Shui Signed by Robin Laws, I listened to the live Ken and Robin Talk about stuff podcast and Had a feast day lunch in a whole foods shop.

Feng Shui is one of my favorite role playing games and I still use a bunch of the ideas from its GM advice section. My favorite piece of advice from it and one that Rob Donahue has blogged about here, is The Think of Three Cool places to have a fight method of adventure writing.

Essentially the advice is to think of three cool places to have a fight, think of cool things that could happen during a fight in those places then write backstory and a clue chain to help the players get from one place to the next. Another really interesting twist to it is the three fights don’t have to be fights, but they should be the important scenes for that session and the bridging scenes are opportunities for you to show how badass your Player characters are.

A couple of the coolest places I have set fights recently are:
The Circle of Doom - This dungeon is awesome.
On a Boat - bonus points if it is sinking or has rammed another ship.

What is the coolest place you have set or played a fight or other important scene in an RPG? Where is the coolest place you have been in real life that you could set a fight in or at?

Reading list and Diet update

This week I weigh 13st 8lbs, I’m a little lacking in post inspiration this week so here is a list of cool things I have been reading.

Cold Days Dresden Files
The New Dresden Files book releases next Tuesday and the first Four Chapters can be found on the Jim Butcher site.

Queen of Thorns
The most recent Dave Gross Pathfinder Novel featuring Varian and Radovan . Paizo have another short bridging story featuring them up on the web fiction section of their site. The 2nd book in this series Master of Devils heavily inspired Legend of the hungry Phoenix and is an awesome example of Wujia Fiction with a pathfinder twist.

4 Hour Chef
This only just turned up on Tuesday but I am already enjoying it. It’s a book about learning disguised as a cook book. It also has links to videos of how to throw knives which is pretty cool.

All the Iron Kingdoms Books and Fiction
Essentially to farm ideas for my new short Iron Kingdoms Campaign I have been re reading the old 3.5 Iron Kingdoms books and The Warmachine and Hordes Army Books. I also actually got to play Warma-Hordes against K8 last night.

Diet Update Magic Items and Iron Kingdoms RPG

This week I weigh 13st 10lbs. My Nano Writing has slowed right down but I am changing tack with it and will hopefully pick up pace over the weekend. I am up to 8565 Words a long way from the target.

Tonight I am starting a mini campaign of The Iron Kingdoms RPG. The players are all starting as members of a small Mercenary organisation and I am going to use a lot of the ideas from Night's Black Agents to make the campaign go. Specifically I am going to make a Conspyramid for the players to investigate and hopefully the first session will encourage them to start digging.

As the Iron Kingdoms doesn’t have traditional Vampires I am looking elsewhere to stock my conspyramid. The Nightmare Kingdom of Cryx is looking like a good candidate as are Sinister cults and the plots of Dragons.

On Sunday I will be running the last session of my Witchfire Trilogy Campaign (which I am running in Pathfinder having started it in the Warhammer Fantasy System from FFG). My prep for this session is what made me have another look at the new IK Rpg.

In the meantime here is one of the items mentioned in my Nano sample:

Gavel of Law

A +2 Slim Iron wood Gavel, about 9” long and carved with symbols of law and justice. Different owners have reported seeing carvings of different Law focused Deities upon the Gavel. With a thought it can be transformed into a  3 Foot Ironwood Warhammer +2 adding its bonuses to attack and damage.
To Attune you must catch or strike a criminal or liar.
Once per day by striking it against a hard surface you can create a zone of truth.
Once per month it can be used to “judge” someone. Attack vs MD. on a hit the target is banished off plane to a prison. At the DM’s opinion that person might come back at the head of a force of demons they have freed from that prison looking for revenge, or they could have something the players need forcing them to follow them to the prison plane. (While the target is on the prison plane the hammer counts as an additional item)
Quirk: becomes uncomfortable about breaking laws, this become an inability to do so if over attuned. (also if over attuned the bearer cannot Lie and has a poor opinion of criminals and liars.)

Random LT Character Generator

Inspired by JJ and his new (and regularly needing new) Character. Here is a random PC generator for the LT Live Roleplaying System.

Race d10

Roll	Race
1	Human
2	Dwarf
3	Elf
4	Fey
5	Olog
6	Beastkin
7	Drow
8	Halfling
9	Uruk
10	Umbral

Skills
Keep rolling until you run out of points.

Roll	Skill	Cost
1	Large Weapon Use 2	2
2	Shield Use 2	2
3	Light Armour Use 2 Roll a d6 1-2 =Light, 3-4 = Medium, 5-6 =Heavy	2/3/4
4	Projectile Weapon 4	4
5	Thrown Weapon 1	1
6	Spellcasting d6: 1-3 = Level 1, 4-6 = Level 2	4/8
7	Poison Lore 4	4
8	Incantation d6: 1-3 = Level 1 4-6 = Level 2	4
9	Potion Lore 3	3
10	Roll a d6: 1-2 =Bind Wounds, 4-6= Physician	1/2
11	Invocation 3	3
12	Recognise Forgery 1	1
13	Power (4/8/12/16) Roll 1d4	2/4/6/8
14	Evaluate 1	1
15	Ambidexterity 2	2
16	Body Development 1-3 = Level 1 4-6 = Level 2	4
17	Sense Magic 1	1
18	Ritual Magic d4: 1=contribute, 2= level 1, 3= Level 2, 4= Level 3	1/2/4/6
19	Cartography 1	1
20	Healing d6: 1-3 = Level 1, 4-6 = Level 2	4

Post what you end up with in the comments.

The Prophecy of a Dawning Age

My Nano entry is up to about 6000 words. As that wis what I am writing mostly at the moment todays post is a bit of that.

My Entry is inspired by The Armitage Files and The Dracula Dossier. It is a collection of Prophecies given to the players as a massive free form source of plot hooks. They then decide what they want to investigate.  I am detailing each of the people places and things mentioned in the prophecy in several different ways so that it can be used a number of ways.

So todays post is the bits of the prophecy I have written so far:

Journal entries, each on pages from the same book most torn out and separate:

This new age is dark, the people who held power before the change have fallen from grace. I am hoping that these journals will help guide the people that come later.

Serrenanathor trying to curry favor in the courts of Axis. His motivation is unclear to me. Does he seek to ingratiate himself back into the court of the Elven queen or bring her to ruin? Why was he banished from court? Who else is at work here?

Sandy arena is not haunted, it does seem to be summoning a Living dungeon from deep beneath it but the owner does not want to stop his games. Someone will need to go both down there to kill the dungeon and stop whatever is summoning it to the arena.

The burning men and that alabaster mask are hunting me, I ran across them in [place]

A Living Dungeon is growing in the graveyard of a small town northeast of Axis. We were alerted to it by one of Ash’s contacts. We got word that the Graveyard had begun to sink and when we were initially contacted it was 6 ft below the level of the surrounding countryside. We have dispatched a small team to investigate.

I Think these Living Dungeons are starting to target the people and places we are invested in, almost as if someone is using them to distract us from something. i have decided to try to get my hands on a Map of the Groaning Ground to help me track them and see if there is some sort of pattern.

The most recent owner of the Key to the Green Box has been tracked down they are [Player’s parents Name]. I fear that they do not know what they have in their possession. It is imperative that they are warned before less altruistic interests become aware of its location.

The Legate of the small town of Kannacale has gone missing, apparently there was some sort of scandal involving his wife, and adulterous barbarian and some beheadings. The adventurer and his cohorts apparently went to retrieve the wife’s head but the Judge is still missing. We have a short First hand report from a Dragonologist Scholar named Mouse that he was banished with the Gavel of Law. Possibly worth looking up this barbarian to investigate the properties of this Gavel. The Scholar was trying to research where the Gavel sent it’s victims, and mentioned that the barbarian had gone missing.

Written on the back of a wanted poster for “Black Orri Leader of the sea wolves offering a 20,000Gp Reward.

Things we still need to deal with:
The city of the east
Spider monkeys growing in Gonshans basement.
Ethereblah’s Ring of Ice was stolen from an elven messenger his body was found near The Obsidian Library.
That Shaguain pirate that walks on water.
Fire Zombies?!?

Which of these would you want to investigate if you were given this as a handout?

Follow my Nano progress here: http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/participants/davetrollkin/novels/the-prophecy-of-a-dawning-age/stats

Wulin societies as Icons and Starting Nano (and Diet update)

I weigh 13 St and 11 lbs. The Diet bet progresses well. Another Chap at work has joined us wagering that he will lose 12 lbs in 4 weeks.

I started my Nanowrimo entry today and you can follow my progress here: http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/participants/davetrollkin/novels/the-prophecy-of-a-dawning-age/stats

Part of my entry is a section inspired by this post from Rob Donoghue about using the icons in different ways. That and my own 13th Age of the Hungry Phoenix campaign inspired me to write up a set of Wulin societies as Icons.

My main sources for inspiration for these was the comics for Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Heaven Sword, Dragon Sabre and bits of the Weapons of the Gods RPG and Storm Riders comics.

This is still very rough and needs some more writing to make it properly useable but even as is I think they could make an interesting foundation of a campaign. The main thing I think needs adding to them is the enemies and allies sections and to give each a goal. As it stands in 13th Age the Icons each have an agenda making it easy to extrapolate adventure ideas out of the sort of things that Icon wants.

Here is what I have for them so far:

Wulin Societies

Each Icon becomes the founder or leader of a classic Wulin society fighting for prominence in
the Jiang Hu.

Shaolin Temple
Icon easiest to draw parallels with : The Dragon Emperor
Shoalin Monks, great Kung Fu, A Righteous sect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaolin_Sect

Wudang
Icon easiest to draw parallels with: The Archmage?
Founded by 3 Mountains Chang a student of a great Shaolin Monk, His 7 students became the 7 Heroes of Wudang. Mostly Soft Martial arts, Tai Chi fist and Tai Chi Sword. Another Righteous Sect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wudang_Sect

The Beggars Sect
Icon easiest to draw parallels with: The High Druid or the Prince of Shadows (In 13th age of the Hungry Phoenix The Prince of Shadows is the leader of this sect.)

An Unaligned sect. Made up of members from all walks of life, has both clean clothes and dirty clothes members and a wide variety of martial arts, and excellent information network. The Staff is a common weapon amongst it’s members. All of the Members have a small pouch (some of which are magical).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beggars%27_Sect

The Kong Tong
Icon easiest to draw parallels with: The Great Gold Dragon

According to legend the sect was founded by a Shepherd boy taught powerful magic and kung fu by a Dragon in the mountains. They specialise in discrete and unusual weapons and have a strict moral code.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kongtong_Sect

Mount Hua Sect
Icon: The division speaks a little bit to The Elf Queen (needs a bit more work)
A sect internally divided by its adherents to it’s Sword skills (for which it is famed) and it’s Internal arts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Hua_Sect

Red Tiger (Kun Lung)
formerly upright but desperate to become a wulin superpower and increasingly willing to do more and more extreme things to do so.
Icon easiest to draw parallels with: The crusader

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunlun_Sect

Emei
Icon easiest to draw parallels with: The priestess
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emei_Sect

Ming Rebels
Icon: The Diabolist
An often misunderstood sect, its adherents focus more on helping people than their standing within the Jiang Hu
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_Cult

Non Organisational Icons in such a game could be:

The Monkey King
Fomenting mischief and chaos.
Icon easiest to draw parallels with: The prince of shadows.

The Bitter Hag
Like Jade fox from Crouching Tiger hidden dragon
Icon easiest to draw parallels with: The Diabolist

What would you make into Icons for a 13th Age game?