The Crossroads Hexcrawl

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.

Cranmore Con!

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:

1. Ascension
2. Zombie Munchkin
3. Love Letter
4. Cthulhu Fluxx
5. Penny Arcade Deckbuilding Game
6. Jungle Speed
7. Cockroach Poker
8. Carcassonne
9. Dominion
10. Swashbuckling Adventures
11. Shadowrun
12. Apples to Apples
13. Castle Panic
14. Villa Palleti
15. Dobble
16. Feng Shui
17. Pathfinder
18. Three Dragon Ante
19. Frag
20. Cortex/Mage
21. Savage worlds

6 Session DnD-ish campaign.

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!

Gaming Icebreakers

May was great for gaming and having fun. Less good for fitness and Blogging. This month I am back on track for exercising and dieting again. I am currently back up to 14st 8lbs but I expect that to fall off pretty quickly. I intend to be 14st or lighter by the end of June.

I had a pretty full weekend of Gaming. On Friday we played a 10th level Pathfinder one shot, That I can’t talk too much about as Gav wants to run it again for another group. (Which I will try and get him to write a guest post about).

On Saturday we played Mark’s Golden Age of Pirates D20 Game, which was excellent. We explored a Dungeon on an Island revealed by the tide but had a hard real time limit of the returning tide that threatened to drown us. It added an excellent level of tension to the adventure.

Then on Sunday we played the final part of Dan’s Savage Worlds of Slain adventure (Beyond the Wailing Marsh from Issue 16 of Signs and Portents Magazine). In which we cured two tribes of a ravaging disease and defeated the forces of the Drune Lords in a mass battle.

On saturday evening because we had so many different people staying or visiting for Gaming we had a BBQ which led to some extremely interesting conversations about peoples experiences with Gaming. Gav asked the first question, which was very similar to the one Keith asked us as an Icebreaker when he was doing Have Dice Will Travel.

He asked each of us “What is your favorite system?” and got some extreamly varied responses;

Mine is Feng Shui, but others that were mentioned were 13th Age, Apocalypse World, Dnd 3.X, Mage: The Ascencion, FATE (specifically Spirit of the Century), and Call of Cthulhu.

This led to a variety of other questions from What was your favorite Campaign, Favorite Character, Favorite Adventure? to what is an example of the worst behaviour you have experienced at a Game? If you don’t GM, Why not? (Leading to me lending someone The Armitage Files, which I hope they will run.) What is your Favorite XP system?

What would you ask as a gaming Icebreaker? What is your answer to any of the Questions above?

Feb Diet bet and This is Thracia

I’m doing a february Diet bet with some guys at work. I have wagered that I will lose 10lbs in february and will add a pound to the pot every time I break Diet. I currently Weigh 14st 10lbs and aim to be under 14 stone by the end of the month.

I’m also going to start a This is Thracia DnD Next Game on G+ on Tuesdays to go alongside the Friday game.

Meanwhile Friday’s This is Thracia Game is progressing well. So far since restarting and converting to Pathfinder the players have cleared out the lair of a Giant Owlbear,  Investigated the monastery of an atlantean scholastic order that had been attacked by the agents of the Fire temple, and returned to the Moathouse and dispatched the Gnome Air Temple illusionists that were guarding the upper level.

This evening they plan to clear out the basement level and wait for the resupplies that one of the captured Gnomes spoke about.

Drop a note in the comments if you are interested in joining in the G+ games.

Rekindling This is Thracia

I have re started my This is Thracia Game, I have updated it to Pathfinder and updated the setting to reflect the three months that have passed since we last played.

In September a large fire gutted most of Cannacale (the town that acts as a base for the adventurers). While most of the damage has been rebuilt or repaired, Adventurers have been banned from the town itself and as a result the half finished Arena just outside of town has become the Home for most of the adventurers in the area. Passara wife of the still missing Legate has taken over stewardship of the town (since she was raised from the dead) and has been harsh and uncompromising both to adventurers and other “threats” to the safety of the town.

Greek Warships have been seen off the western coast, and rumour has it that they have driven off the pirates from the Isle just west of the Ruins of Troy. Strange people have also been seen moving in both directions along the Temple River and some of the townsfolk whisper that the Forces of the Temple of Elemental Evil are on the move once more. It is said that word has been sent to Constantinople but no help has been forthcoming. The Roman Emperor in Constantinople has outlawed the practice of Olympian worship in the city and closed the Temple district.

We had our first session on Friday. Xavian, Faroq, Iola and Clio went to investigate the Owlbear Cave. Inside they discovered Spiders, Shrieker Fungi, A shambling Mound and a Half Barded extremely angry Giant Owlbear. Having dispatched this variety of foes they investigated the caves finding bodies clad in Green- Blue Armour, one of whom had a very unusual ring made of Blonde Humanoid Hair and a somewhat secret passage leading to a cleft in the rocks that ran north into the mountains.

Pathfinder House Rules.

Having converted to Pathfinder I am using a few house rules. Similar to the ones I used for my last Pathfinder Campaign.

• Slow XP Advancement
• XP for killing monsters halved
• XP for Treasure 1 per gp value of Treasure not just stuff found in monsters pockets.
• 100 XP for discovering a location
• 50 xp for updating the Table map
• 100 x level for a session write up
• 50 x level for a character bio.
• 100 x dungeon level for completely clearing a dungeon (work out how to figure out dungeon level)
• 1d6 x 100 for carousing,
• XP monster value for delivering live monsters to the arena
• 100 x level for completing a quest or plot hook
• 5 xp for a fortune coming true
• level x 100 xp Achieving a Personal Goal.

I’m adding Ritual Magic for Spellbook style magic users. You can cast any spell in your spellbook as a ritual (without having to have it prepared) by spending 1-10 mins per spell level and magical ingredients equal to 10 x Spell level GP (these numbers might change) and describing a cool ritual.

If you have additional attacks due to having a high base attack bonus they are all at your highest attack Value.

No Alignment, I’ll deal with spells that utilize it as they come up. Clerics don’t have to share an alignment with their deity but should act like a cleric of the deity.

Clerics might end up getting some of their spells in a way similar to this post.

Critical hits on a natural 20 do double damage, (you can choose to just multiply it or roll double the dice) If your weapon has an extended threat range or crit multiplayer you can roll to confirm as normal to get the extra bits.

Death and Dying. 0 is staggered, -1 - 1Con is Dying, While you are dying make a Con check DC 10 plus the minus number you are on, if you fail lose another 1d6 HP. You Die after one round at your Con in negative HP. If you pass you are fine this round, if you pass by 5 or more you recover to 1 HP. If you get magical healing you heal from 0 HP.

I’m also going to do something with Ability Damage but I’m not sure what yet.

What are you playing this year?

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?

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.)

Epic level play and Diet update.

This week I weigh 13 Stone and 8lbs. I am down 5 lbs since Monday.

Inspired by some of the games we played in Scotland I want to put down some of my thoughts on epic level play.

The most interesting thing for me about Epic Level Play is it’s scope and the things that characters are capable of. High and Epic level Characters (at least in D&D) can Teleport, Raise the Dead, Travel to other Planes, Heal and Deal vast amounts of Damage along with a host of other capabilities.

One of the downsides to High level play is that the variety of options available to Players and Monsters can bog down combat. For my Pathfinder Game I added some additional House rules to make it go faster. I had extra attacks all have the same (the highest Attack modifier) to speed things up and make them more relevant. I also re wrote a lot of the monsters and opponents to only include relevant information, (making them look a lot like 4th edition Monsters)

I think the most telling part about running Epic Level Games is the mental gear change it requires. As was reflected in early editions of D&D as you began to reach High and epic levels the rules granted players the opportunity to create Fortresses, gain followers and start organisations, changing the game from the immediate environs of the players to one where they work towards a civilising goal.

Recently I played a spin off game where a character from our main campaign run by Gavin Smith wanted to undertake a crazy Viking plan invovling gloriously dying, planes travel, death, undeath, the collection of an equally crazy crew to help him out and in the end a suitably epic ending. I am being vague on purpose to avoid spoilers for those who are still in the long running campaign.

I also find it interesting the different ways games handle it. In Exalted you essentially start in an Epic Levels environment, even if your freshly awakened Exalted isn't ready for the things he has to deal with. In the first session of The Exalted game that Rob ran for us we were given a City, but told that in getting it we had annoyed a bunch of people who were coming with an army to take it back, so we should get to work finding allies and Magics to help us protect our city.

Whereas in Savage Worlds, Characters become more capable but just as fragile as they advance.

What counts as Epic is another interesting Question E6 suggests a fantasy world where the level cap is 6. Making 6th level effectively Epic limits the resources of the Characters but does make for a much more gritty game. Inspired by a suggestion that as you go up in levels the tone of the game changes, often Epic level play feels like playing fantasy Superheroes, and a just as interesting but very different game could be had by expecting your players to deal with the same type of things with the limited resources of a lower level cap or lower magic game.

A lot of my inspiration for High level play comes from these two Story Hours on EN World:

Sagiro’s Story Hour has been going for years and has some spectacular examples of High level play:
While Sepulcherave’s campaign is very different in tone. (EN world is down as I write this so I will link to this blog post is from another fan of The story hour and has loads of links as well as PDF’s he made of them.)

What is your favorite Game for Epic Level play?