New Campaign

     I started a new campaign on Obsidian Portal, called Black Temple of the Ravening Gods. I want to run it with DCC to emphasize the weird darkness I hope to bring to it. I have used it once before when I was running my 4E game, there should be at least one map soon. I like the wiki aspect where I can add stuff/edit/link various things, and then I can look at what I have and smooth it out. Memorial day weekend is when I hope to run the first adventure in this world I am building, and it will be a joint effort, I will just lay the foundation like I did my 4E game. Anyone out there that is in the Columbus area that wants to play, let me know. I am hoping to run it at Ravenstone, but I have backup locations just in case. Take care all!

March Maps Kickoff!

     So here we are, second day of March and Monday I will show you something from my little map book. Here are some things I put together for my 4E game using Gaming Paper, which I found to be pretty useful for making tactical maps.

     This was one I got a lot of use out of, since they started out in a village in the swamp this was my generic swamp map. I had some map tiles that I could set on here to change it up. Used sharpies on it, had to switch between pens because one would start to dry out on me. Still pretty fun to do.

     This was a park where they were supposed to meet someone, and a big demon jumped out and attacked them. The yellow marks the foot paths and the circular bit in the middle was a sunken (you had to step down into it) area with benches. Only used it the one time, though.

     Another single use map, this was the part of a major turning point in the campaign. The big bad had a friend of theirs hostage, or so they thought. After the fight was over, they found the tiefling ambassador they were trying to save had been dead for awhile. It was set in a church, hence all benches and the the altar/podium on the "stage" area.

     Tomorrow I will be posting my new stuff and I hope you enjoy, and feel free to let me know what you think. Take care everyone!

Ravenstone Games

Mike Williamson, owner

     Ravenstone Games! My friendly local game store. I have some lovely memories here and felt I should share this place with you all. When I travel, I like to visit game stores local to where I am going. I felt I should cover my local store. Ravenstone has been  a Columbus, Ohio fixture founded by Joe Turner in 1996, starting out in Westerville and eventually moving to it's current location at 1675 Karl Ct. Columbus, Ohio 43229. It later years it gained new owners, but today it is run by Mike Williamson.

     The Pathfinder Society has an active presence, with games happening on Thursday and Saturday and Dungeons and Dragons 4E Mondays and Tuesdays. Apparently someone is running a Dragon Storm game Fridays, which is awesome to see one of the original collectible card/role playing games getting some love. Heroclix games are Thursdays and Star Trek Attack Wing is one Wednesday a month (just started recently). The second Saturday of the month has COGA running miniatures games starting at 10am. Of course they do the Magic pre-releases and will soon be getting into the Friday Night Magic scene.

     The website is not quite up to date, and there is a you tube video if you are so inclined. If you are looking for the latest and they do not have it, he can most likely order it for you.Next time you're in Columbus, get it a look. Take care guys!

OSR continuation of my 4E campaign

     My 4E game kind of petered out last year, and lately I have been wanting to run a new fantasy campaign. Actually, I was thinking of running it in the same world as my 4E game, just further along the timeline. The group did allow a group of devil troops to enter the world. To update the world I would have that an army of devils laying siege to Galen, and Jinx ruling the teifling nation. In addition, there were events happening that the group never got involved in, some things they actually heard of, like dragons taking an interest in what is going on. Some things I do not want to mention just yet but it should be exciting. Just wanted to put that out there, now back to waiting patiently for the 23rd. *Squee!!*

Now, what did I do before becoming an adventurer?

     Character backgrounds! I first saw them used in 4E D&D, then later in Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque (linked to the pdf, the backgrounds start on page 25). In both instances there is an in game benefit and a bit of an explanation of each.  The TotGaD backgrounds have some interaction with the "leading question", an example being the alienist's leading question "The mad gibber unspeakable things; what was the strangest thing a patient ever said in your presence?" This can easily be used as a story/adventure hook.

     Character do not need to to be spelled out, as seen in the first edition AD&D DMG, Gygax included a secondary skill table to indicate what your character may have been doing before taking up the adventurer's mantle. More recently, over at the Roll For Initiative web site, we have an  article with something similar to Gary's secondary skill table except this expands it with separate tables for the different classes. The thought being what is a reasonable background for this class (ie. only a fighter will have access to the armorer background)

     So, are there any generic fantasy backgrounds floating around? A cross between Gygax's secondary skill table and what's in TotGaD? If you have any ideas, let me know.

Things are interesting around here

     Work has gotten better and worse at the same time, I am re-certified but the my job may be drastically changed soon. This craziness has been reflected in my home life as well, but enough of that. This past Saturday we had some friends over and we played Carcassonne and Telestrations. There were six of us and it was so much fun.

     In other news I am getting my 4E D&D game back off the ground but would still like to try something different sometime. That is right Doctor Who rpg, I am looking at you! In the next several days I am hoping to try something new in this blog (well, new for this blog anyways) so please stay tuned! Take care everyone.

Where to stand in the edition wars?

     A quick little post here in case any of you have not been hipped to this great and hilarious web series Dungeon Bastard. Check out his latest episode here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRZ1CYYIsCg
Go on, I'll wait here until you're done.

     Back? Good. We should be working together to build up our community and not squabbling like a bunch of kids at recess. Like I have said before, play what you want you want and respect other people's choices for whatever game they want to play.

     I am looking forward to seeing what Wizards comes up with, but if I do not like it I have plenty of other games to choose from, and why waste my energy complaining about what is wrong when I can enjoy something I like.

     I will be returning to finish my 4E game in a couple months and hope to complete that campaign with more amazing moments. They left off having just raised the demolished tiefling capitol from within the Starfel crater and set it (reformed) floating above the gaping chasm. Jinx will have a hand in helping their ruling class establish order and the wizard, Quorien, will get an urgent missive from the scarlet spire asking for his aid. Oh I have some great plans when we return, hehehe.

     Take care and please fell free to leave a comment.

Welcome 2012!!

     New post, New Year!! Here we are again, I have been a bit lax, but with the holidays over I should be back on track. This Sunday is the second part of my Deadlands game, and I am looking forward to it. We have one person who wont be able to make it, but we shall forge ever onward. The last game saw the group traveling out West at the urging of an old friend. As the train moved into Arizona it was set upon by a desperate group of outlaws eager to divest the occupants of their precious valuables. Of course, a gunfight ensued and the bandits escaped leaving two of their own behind, one unconscious and the other most definitely deceased. One of the characters, a fire and brimstone preacher went to give chased and was brutally shot down. Thankfully the group was able to get him some medical attention (plus spent a few bennies) so he will be arriving in town with the rest.

     For Christmas I received  some Heroclix, which I used to play some years ago and may start up again, soon. In other news, while I am running Deadlands, I continue to cultivate ideas and plots for the return of my 4E game. I am looking forward to it and feel confident that they will get a kick out of it. I hope to bring some more interviews to you all in the coming months. Take care everyone, and goodnight!

Holidays 2011

     Oh the holidays, a time for families and friends to get together. Well, mostly families, I understand that, which is why I have moved my game, so I can get everyone together at least once before the end of the year. It is a little discouraging, but I remind myself that some folks do not have a group that they can play with at least once a month. Part of my desire to play with the full group before the new year is one of them will be unavailable for a few weeks afterwards.

     So with all of this prepping for my Deadlands game, I am sticking with my plan of returning to Dungeons and Dragons afterwards. I have just one or two plot threads in mind, so once the players have taken care of business we will return to the campaign

     On the World of Warcraft side of things, I am enjoying it but my altaholic tendencies are catching up with me. I find myself running different characters around repeating various cooking quests in order to get the various cooking achievements. No wonder I get hungry when I play! On the positive side I always have a toon for whatever mood I am in, so that is nice.

     So, have any of you been stymied by the holidays? Gaming plans falling through? Let me know, leave a comment!

It's been a long time (btw, Happy fourth!!)

Sorry folks, been awhile but I am back, also my Sunday night game is still going! some close calls but no fatalities, though they had to leave the human capital of Galen to return to the Lost Village down South. For any newcomers, My Sunday game is a 4E sandbox that has been going for nearly a year I think and I hope to take the players to level thirty.

On free rpg day, I ran the free adventure/introductory kit for All Flesh Must Be Eaten entitled "The Waking Dead". There were three people there to try it out and we had a lot of fun, especially myself when I got to describe some of the zombies, hehe. All Flesh does not use maps and minis (though you could, I suppose), so it was a bit of a change. I would love to run a one off or a small campaign for it in the future, possibly a Halloween game is in order!

Now, with summer comes some free time with the kids, which means trying to play some of these games I have purchased and have not played. First in line was Dungeon Twister (http://www.dungeontwister.com/us/lejeu/index.html) and it was fun. Next was Z-G, which has been out of print for awhile (2001 in fact) here is the link to the board game geek page http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1820/z-g .

Origins happened just last weekend and once again the family and I went with the day pass. My oldest son found and purchased some Z-G figures in the dealers room, so I assume he had fun when we played the week before. I picked up some old Mage Knight stuff (oh man, some of the paint jobs, rough!) also picked up Telestrations, like playing telephone but drawing instead of whispering to the person next to you. It was a great party game, and if you are into those kinds of games I would call it a must have!

I am still wanting to run a sci fi savage worlds game, using Interface Zero as a basis. So many games, so little time!! Alright, I will stop there and hope to be back in a couple of weeks.

Jinx Hellstrom: 20 years into the future

Tonight's game had the PC's being snatched forward in time an indeterminate amount of time. Brock is tasked, by the girl he has a crush on, to take a magical device back to his present and "Stop the rain." among other things. Jinx, a tiefling, is confronted by one of her own race for "betraying her own people", he even slaps her when she interrupts him. Abruptly a dark shape swoops down through a great hole in the ceiling and grabs the people from the future and flings them off a nearby balcony. Upon landing the group can see they are up against a purple dragon!

Shortly after engaging the dragon, a fomorian slavedriver named Kurd drops in through the ceiling and attacks the group from the rear. Soon after the minions (four of them)approach and two illithids creep around the edge of the fight. It was a hard fight (dazed conditions are a pain) but they managed to pull through. It was very satisfying, I feel I am a step closer to learning how to balance an encounter. I do not want them shrugging their way through it, but I do not want them to be dying all over the place.

My approach this time was to look at what minis I had and see what worked with the story I wanted to tell. Next I used the monster builder to find appropriate stats and changed them when necessary. I then looked through my map collection for closest to what I wanted and used a few dungeon tiles to represent various aspects of the terrain, like holes in the floor and piles of debris. I was very happy the way it turned out and am looking forward to the next game in two weeks. Take care everyone and see you later!

Last Sunday's game and looking to the future.

Last Sunday was my bi-weekly D&D 4E game and it went just fine, even though we are currently missing our rogue, one of the guys played him as well as his own (I hope that made sense). The pc's were looking for odd jobs to get in with the local nobles when a tailor asked if they would check out a subterranean room he found under his cellar. It seems that the city of Galen was built over top of some ruins, normally the man would just let the local scholars know about it and they would come and look it over and try to preserve the knowledge. Lately, if someone finds something like this, the royal guard comes and takes it out, usually not caring what gets damaged in the process.

Upon reaching the tailor's, they find he heard a great gurgling and sloshing noise come from the stairs he discovered under his cellar floor. A great red geyser erupted from the hole in the floor, and he quickly run up the stairs a slammed the door. Seeing the pc's hesitation, he offers more gold to the group and they can keep what they find. They accept and head down into the cellar, which is dimly lit so the wizard casts light on a crossbeam in the center of the ceiling. They barely get in when they are attacked by a huge crimson ooze. While fighting they do some checks (nature, arcana) and discover this elemental magical ooze. They are happy when the fight is over because there were some close moments in there.

After a short rest they venture down the stairs and into a good sized room. They see four broken sarcophagi six statues, one in each corner and two flanking a bowl resting on a small dais in the center of the room. The rogue sneaks up and looks in the bowl, finding a glowing object laying within (I needed to change what the magic item was). As he lifts it out of the bowl the corner statues come to life, a fierce red glow in their eyes. A moment later, the two statues at the bowl attack the rogue. This battle was really close at times, which is how I like them to be hehe. After the automatons healed themselves a bit, the guys got serious and knuckled down. Encounters were encountered and dailies dealt, crits were flying also as well some bad luck rolling ones that one of the players finally shook off. When the dust settled they had another mini mystery that they will have to deal with next game as we had ran out of time.

Sometime in the near future, a friend of mine is moving back into my neck of the woods. I am hoping to get him and a few others to try the dawn of worlds I mentioned some time ago, once that is done I want to turn it into a regular Savage Worlds game. I will let you guys know how it all shakes out. Thanks for reading and take care!

Group Templates! Are they right for you?!?

Groups templates, I had heard of them for awhile now, but only recently have I used one. I was starting a home brew Dungeons and Dragons 4E campaign and decided to use "Return to Northmoor" as a basis for it. http://northmoor.spookyouthouse.com/ is/was an amazing podcast where the DM goes through the material he will be presenting his players, then a bit of actual play, with the DM commenting on how it really went down. Pdf's of the gaming material, notes and monster stats where needed, means you have everything you need to run a session. The pdf pertinent to this post is found in http://northmoor.spookyouthouse.com/dnd/podcast/adventure/return-to-northmoor-episode-1-materials/ under Group Items and Character Requirements. Since I was not following the main plot of RtN, then my first task was to adapt these to meet my needs.

Another place I heard about group templates was Fear the Boot (http://www.feartheboot.com/ftb/index.php/archives/14) who have blank templates on their resource page. FotB is all class and walks you through the process, though not in a straight line ;).

The thing I love about having a group template is the players are giving me story hooks, ideas I can use to draw them in. I have (and still do) come up with npc's and events that ties them to the world I have created. Instead of limiting the possibilities, it has opened them up.

So, give it a shot and let me know how it went. I would love to hear how it went, especially if you have already used them, whether you are a player or you are the one in charge. See ya later, guys.