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Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Reposting Peninsula of Plenty (PoP) Maps
Thursday, June 18, 2015
The Fortress Of Potamus Lake (PoP Campaign)
Typical main floor layout. Click to enlarge. |
Map suitable for second floors and higher. Click to enlarge. |
Seventh floor of Gerent's house. |
Alternate roof (accidentally rotated 180 degrees.) |
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
Observing The Can’t of Thieves
- They were loud and swore around kids, like they wanted to be tough.
- 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.
- They were not identically dressed, but very similar.
- They made eye contact while speaking everyone, except children. They ignored children.
- They looked in all the machines.
- They said not so nice things, but smiled the whole time.
- They went into the kids play area, the bathroom and peeked in the office.
- They never stopped moving or talking.
- 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, December 22, 2014
Maps – The Stave Church
Half Baked Idea - The Demon Core
Sunday, December 21, 2014
Serpent Bay – Five Minute Vignette
“They brought the demon core, blood hexes, and shells. They pushed us to the sea. In the woods, we moved like eidolons hunting, as the skies sizzled with hot brass and steel rain. The sea frothed blue and white; the gnashing of frustrated and frenzied selkies.
Friday, March 1, 2013
The One McGuffin
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.