Showing posts with label D&D. Show all posts
Showing posts with label D&D. Show all posts

Saturday, August 22, 2015

Going Off the Rails – Part Three

In the last post, I described a player created assassin named Bloodless Jack. He sprang from the character’s minds fully formed and all I had to do was give him a character sheet and a band of minions. The players even gave him a very cool name. Somehow, minor details of a handful of traps inspired them to create a character out thin air. And he was so epic, I had to make him real.
I decided that he had two types of minions, one group of sword slinging fighters for security and targeted attacks and a second group of cleric-rogues for sneaky infiltration type work. Bloodless Jack would have a chief of operations, a warrior named Marcus Bastion. A nice strong name for someone who handles front line fighting and defense. 
How these two met in my mind was very natural. They were brothers. Bloodless Jack and Marcus Bastion. Everything makes sense… Wrong. 
Of course, it’s wrong. Brothers would never have different last names; Jack is as stupid a last name as Bloodless is a stupid first name. I completely understood that, so Bloodless Jack was obviously a nickname. And a character/player created nickname.

Obvious. Or so I thought.
Bloodless Jack, or just plain Alexander Bastion launches ambushes, targeted assassinations and finally outright treason to topple the crown prince for fame and glory.
So when the characters cornered Marcus and his brother in an attack on the crown prince, they asked:
“Which one of you is the assassin known as ‘Bloodless Jack’?”
Alex and his brother Marcus chuckled. The follow up question, “Who lead this attack?” was also met with a snort of derision as Marcus was suited in full plate and obviously leading the assault.
Marcus went down fighting… and upon his defeat was outed as the deadly assassin know to all as “Bloodless Jack”.
And thus, “Bloodless Jack” was truly born. Alex rallied his and his brother’s minions and relentlessly attacked the characters at every turn. An epic battle to the death, fought in back alleys and shadowy corners of dozens of towns, across an kingdom, all the way to the brother’s mountain top enclave.

Friday, August 21, 2015

Going Off the Rails – Part Two

Player inventions… How many times have you had a player try to invent something and complete throw a campaign into chaos?
Many years ago, I was running a campaign that had too many rogues to be well rounded. There was not much need for traps in this world, they only came in three varieties:
Noise making traps on homes,
Animal traps,
Generic fortification defenses.
Being made up of thieves, the party kept checking for traps where there were none. Since it was a point of interest for them, and one player rolled very well, I decided that a box did have a trap. I described workings in great and gory detail. The players and their thieving characters ate it up. Of course, the next door had a trap. Lacking any foresight, I described this trap as exactly as the one before.
And the seed was planted.
The next chest had the same trap as the first two, except this time it killed a character. My bad, I didn’t expect this to happen, but the players had. As the play paused to reroll a new character, of course another rogue, I overheard the strangest thing:
“Bloodless Jack got ya.”
“That was awesome.” said another player.
“What do you think he wants?”
“Don’t know. It could be that chalice.”
“Naw, we are going to give it away and a priest is a much easier target than us.”
“Fame,” added a third.
“Yes! It makes sense that someone would want fame and notoriety. Sort of like the guy in the cabin mailing bombs.”
“Ted something, right?”
“Yeah. We should nail this guy before he gets us.”
In just a 30 minute character generating session, the players had worked out that they were up against an assassin. A very detail orientated, cunning and evil assassin. A man who called himself Bloodless Jack. Bloodless as in so cold, the blood didn’t run in his veins. They had gathered all these details from the repeated description of a single trap described the exact same way, three times over.
Oops. These traps were simply on the fly details in response to the character’s expectations. At no time did I picture a mysterious assassin. I didn’t say anything that would have laid such an awesome name on him. In fact, there was no assassin except in the players minds.
Guess what? The very next session had a very fleshed out assassin bent on killing the characters. This assassin was neatly merged with the prior story, assassinating the priest who hired the players. He then took out the boat captain that hired the characters for security. As time went on, the characters were defending the crowned prince against this diabolical fiend.

Thursday, August 20, 2015

Going off the Rails – Part One

Have you ever had a night of gaming go off the rails?
I had a 3 hours session turn into a 6-7 hour marathon of gaming. We should have cut it off, but everyone was having too much fun. The players had reached a remote village and were trying to set up a trade agreement. They offended the villagers and the party tried an Indiana Jones style escape to a rope bridge and escape.
The one magic users who could have stopped the villagers with a spell instead flew to the bridge with axe. He was prepared to cut the bridge after his fellow adventurers made it across. This is when the game exhaustion hit.
All of the players shouted “Cut it now!” And the magic user complied, trapping everyone on the wrong side of the bridge. Note that it was the players that made the request, their characters obviously were to far away. A little meta-gaming goes a long way when injected into the story.
We ended right there with everyone high-fiving and congratulating each other. Only the player who cut the bridge looked concerned and perplexed.
At the start of the next session, everyone was sheepish. With a little sleep, they realized the implications of last session. I started the next session with the characters toweling off from their heroic leap to into the river and swim to safety.
Sometimes, you just have to end with a gag to keep the fun alive. Die rolling and tactics are great, but a story sometimes has to jump to stay alive.


Chaos Star

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

A Study in Recreation: Fear Itself

Today’s update is about Kippers and Jam‘s blog post on recreation. Adrian BK and company has revisited a module called Fear Itself, created back in 1999.
The authors lost the original copy and rewrote it after reconnecting with each other.
The details:
Module: BK1 Fear Itself
Author: Adrian BK
Level: 2-4 (AD&D)
Pages: 18
Price: Free!
You can download a copy from Kippers and Jam. This module features enough leeway to plug into nearly any campaign or play style. Fear Itself features glorious artwork from many artists and professional quality layout and formatting.
Take a look and don’t forget to thank the folks at Kipper and Jam for providing high quality game products.

Monday, July 20, 2015

The Evil Reversal Hook

The characters have proven their worth to the Horned One. They have pursued the Hand of Light to the edges of the kingdom and captured him in a epic battle.
On this day, they will assume their Mantles of Rank during the ritual of sacrifice. The Hand of Light will be extinguished forever. The Horned One will consolidate his power with the elimination of the weak, as the prophecy foretold.
One last time, before the ceremonial shackles are transferred from the hands of the followers of the Horned One to the hands of the Light One, the enemies stand face to face in the darkness of a cell.
Drums pound as the ritual has begun in the next chamber. The Hand of Light smirks and winks. A guard moves forward to strike him, but a quarrel arrests the motion. No harm can come to the Hand of Light except the final strike in the ritual chamber. The guards grumble profanities at the fate of their comrade, but step over the corpse.
The Hand of Light pushes his way into position at the head of the hooded procession, and the final sacrifice stomps away with the clinking of shackles.
Dim light, smoke and heat pour from braziers around the ceremony chamber. The Hand of Light’s robe is a smudge of white before the altar. The High Priest of the Horned One steps forward but the Hand of Light turns his back to him.
Or so it seemed. The ceremonial shackles click tight as the Hand of Light and Horned One of Chaos turn their attention to the sacrifice of the weak. Guards panic as the room erupts in cloying smoke and the characters struggle to free themselves from the shackles that have secretly held them for many years.
Madness reigns as the struggle for life and death rages in ceremony chamber of Chaos…

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Reposting Peninsula of Plenty (PoP) Maps

These two maps are my first attempt at marker colored maps, in recent memory anyway.

Thanks to the guys and gals over on G+ I received a lot of advice on markering technique.
I hope to do version two in either marker or colored pencil.

Thursday, June 18, 2015

The Fortress Of Potamus Lake (PoP Campaign)


 Potamus Lake is the primary ranching area on the Peninsula of Plenty.


Historically, the largest threat to citizens are hippopotami. Many ranch houses are round or square homes with very thick walls, usually 4 to 5 feet thick or more, to protect villagers from hippo attacks. The homes are overbuild as a style, hippopotami don’t really attack the walls. This animal threat precludes flooded moats as defenses.
During The Goblinoid Wars, some of these houses were transformed into veritable fortresses. The Gerent’s House was expanded to a daunting 7 story fort. All of these structures have a ramshackle look; they are not particular good forts, but representative of what was available at the time.
There are seven surviving forts around the Lake. Many ranchers have adopted a more villa-like style for building. 
Each map has the scale of one square = 5 feet. The exterior doors and tower doors are massive, very thick. Doors to the stairways are more modest, typical to a home rather than a fortress.
Typical main floor layout. Click to enlarge.
Spiral stairs are denoted on each level. Examination of the map shows the poor quality of construction.

Map suitable for second floors and higher. Click to enlarge.

No interior walls are shown, except for the entryways to the stair cases. Barred windows appear more prominently on this level to make up for the inadequate arrow loops. 

Seventh floor of Gerent's house.
The Gerent’s House uses the same layout for floors 2-6, so one map can be used several times. His home has a circular and squarish tower for the seventh floor and a large roof area over the main hall.



These two layouts can be used as either alternate rooftops or basements. The Gerent’s house has a small square root cellar and uses the third map for the seventh floor.
Alternate roof (accidentally rotated 180 degrees.)
This is an alternate rooftop, in the event that the home has a higher center hall on the floor below. There are two options for access, climbing an exterior ladder from the tower rooftops below or some sort of trapdoor an ladder from the main hall. In these fortified homes, a peaked roof may appear on this level.  
I hope you enjoy these maps and can find a home for them in your campaign. 

Sunday, June 14, 2015

A rainy afternoon with Labyrinth Lord

This afternoon it poured. As my kids splashed in the wave pool at Darien Lake, I pulled a digital book out and read.



Labyrinth Lord by Daniel Proctor is an excellent modern rendition of old school gaming. To be honest, I had to look up both open game content and Open Game License.
Neither of these concepts diminish Labyrinth Lord in any way. It calls itself “a retro-clone”, but in many ways it is a restoration of past works of fantasy and art. This is the wonderful world in which I had so many adventures. There was a sense of mystery and wonder, endless possibilities.
Labyrinth Lord comes in options: freedigital download and print via Lulu.
I can’t wait until the rain stops and I can gather the kiddos for a game of possibilities.

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Observing The Can’t of Thieves

I ran into an interesting gaming scenario and real life teaching experience with my daughter, at the laundromat of all places. Rogues, thieves and con men are pretty much all the same. They have been for centuries. Techniques never change but the goods and the goals do. The good ones are never spotted, but the bad one stand out.
In real life and in gaming, we tend to gloss over the foolish ones while imagining the dangerous ones are around every corner. The only difference between the two is a poor spot check.
Two guys came in to the laundromat and instantly set off my spidey sense. Not in a physical way, but they were clearly up to no good. I called my daughter close and asked her to observe them.
I had her text me her thoughts about them. Silent communication, whether gestures or texting works to the advantage of the user, no matter the setting or year.
  1. They were loud and swore around kids, like they wanted to be tough.
  2. The looked the same. Bald and wearing straw hats. Sneakers but no socks. Shorts and T-shirts. Sunglasses, worn on the hat by one and around the neck by the other. 
  3. They were not identically dressed, but very similar.
  4. They made eye contact while speaking everyone, except children. They ignored children.
  5. They looked in all the machines.
  6. They said not so nice things, but smiled the whole time.
  7. They went into the kids play area, the bathroom and peeked in the office.
  8. They never stopped moving or talking.
I wasn’t just me, these two stood out to my 10 year old.
They waited until the attendant hung up a sign saying “Back in 20 minutes” then loudly proclaimed that they lost $4.25 in one of the machines and wanted to speak to the owner. My daughter thought it was funny that he put 17 quarters in a machine but didn’t notice it wasn't working. It was also odd that the price was 5 bucks. I shrugged and asked her to keep watching.
When the attendant came back from break, Guy Number One asked if she was the owner and explained the problem. She offered to pull the coin box from the offending machine and refund the his money. Oddly, the coin box was empty. Guy Number Two took over and “The Owner” desperately searched for the offending machine.
What they missed was the attendant had empted the coin boxes before her break. They were not going to find any machine full of “their money”. Having failed, the men switched places and roles to create confusion.
The game continued for a while, until it was clear the tactic wasn’t working.
A loud conversation about going next door for Chinese food started. Number One suggested lunch and Number Two shouted it down since he was once refunded for receiving bad Chinese food at a restaurant.
A challenge was offered and accepted. They asked the attendant if the place next door was any good and she offered an opinion, but they hardly listened.
The two men left, but this time switching roles. Number One, the one who proposed the restaurant, loudly proclaimed he would not stand for bad food. Guess what was going to happen next door?
Pick a century, any century. Con men of every era use the same tactics. Han Solo, Sawyer from Lost and The Grey Mouser all pretty much operate the same underneath the hood.
Here are the tools of the trade:
  • Work in groups.
  • Have a cover story ready.
  • Have a backup plan, hopefully one that matches a cover story.
  • Be outwardly friendly, but forcefully offended and easily aggrieved.
  • Look tough, but back down with grace if necessary.
  • Use respect. Use more than the normal amount of respect to elevate the self-esteem of the mark.
  • Dress neatly with flash and style, but be similar to your associates so physical descriptions are easily confused.
  • Appear to trust other people, so they will extend the same level of trust.  
  • Case the joint, the whole place not just the obvious areas.
  • Look for treasure everywhere. Anything worth anything at all is treasure.
  • Never ask for the whole enchilada, ask for less. This way you can haggle with a mark to part them from their money.

Monday, March 9, 2015

Map - Temple of the Wanderers


I am fooling around with various temple ideas for a D&D campaign.


This is The Temple of Wanderers. It is a simple mud brick and thatch construction. It is dedicated to the sky. The central dais is for the sun and Mercury. The upper left dais is for Mars, while the right is for Venus. The lower two are Jupiter on the left and then Saturn. Mars and Jupiter are surrounded by red wooden posts and handrails, while the other two daises have yellowish trappings.
The rectangular structure has four stone columns and descends 6 feet into the ground. This space is dedicated to the Moon.

Updated with scanned maps.

click to enlarge
click to enlarge

Monday, December 22, 2014

Maps – The Stave Church

Last week, I did a quick drawing of a Norse-themed building. 

Today, for the winter solstice, I knocked out a floor plan for a fantasy-themed stave church. When sketching this church, I imagined that the parishioners are followers of a river goddess and that the church is very old. 


From the exterior, this church would appear to be several stories high, but the interior shows a largely, airy nave. The church is orientated to the north and is a mirror of a river to the west of the church. Most rivers do not flow north, so this one is special. 

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Reshare – Billiam Brabble and Inked Adventures

Reshare my butt… this is a total post theft.
Billiam Babble on Google +, posted about Inked Adventures, a set of 3d paper dungeon morphs. These sets are available on DriveThru RPG and retail for less than $10.00 a set. In many cases, much less than 10 bucks. You can also check out Inked Adventures link above for free items, support, and errata.
What a deal for a creative and easy way to enhance your dungeon crawl.
For the record, my payday is Friday so sadly I have to wait to order my set.

Friday, March 1, 2013

The One McGuffin

In RPGs, magic can be problematic, even chaos-inducing. A DM must carefully consider each and every spell and trinket given to the characters, otherwise he or she will break the campaign. The lesser magics are troublesome sometimes, but it is relatively easy to adjust for them. Let’s face it, DM’s can’t and won’t think of everything, every time.

Sometimes you just have to let things play out and laugh at the mistake. However, I blame many bad endings on The One McGuffin getting loose.

A McGuffin is a device to further the plot. It has no other function and DM’s are well advised not to create and define an item so that it is both a solution and closure to the campaign storyline.

In AD&D, artifacts were vastly overpowered magic items that really should have been left undescribed. Instead, they were tacked on the end of the magic item list, as if they were a viable option.

There is a temptation for all DM’s to use The One McGuffin as a solution to wrap up the scenario. Never, repeat, never allow characters to use an evil item for good. First, it doesn’t make sense for good to use evil for good ends. Second, as a wise man once said, “Power corrupts and absolute power is really, really neat.”

The second pen hits paper and the McGuffin is clearly defined, somewhere deep down inside, you have decided the magic needs to be used. In all cases, this is very much a Deus ex-Machina story ending. If you build the characters up to the pinnacle of power, yet even from that great height, they can’t make a good ending of their own, what is the point?

Beware of The One McGuffin.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

The Random Wizard


Anyone who has DM’ed a campaign has partnered the characters with a random wizard to save their bacon if things go south.

I had no idea that Random Wizards existed in real life, but here’s one. His latest post brings back classic D&D modules with news on the latest offerings from RPGnow. 

(2024 Update - This website is long gone, but thanks to the Wayback Machine, you can still access some of the content.)