Category: Campaigns

Posted on

Elves & Espers Character: Josepi Antonio Vincenti

Josepi Antonio Vincenti

Player: Dan

Human Roguechemist, male

Agility d6
Smarts d8
Spirit d6
Strength d4
Vigor d6

Edges:
AB: Roguechemist
Extra Power (+5 pp)
Wizard

Hindrances:
Quirk
Greedy (m)
Curious

Powers:
Entangle
Obscure
Deflection

Skills:
d8 Arcane Spellcasting
d6 Climbing
d4 Fighting
d4 Gambling
d4 Healing
d4 Intimidation
d6 Lockpicking
d4 Persuasion
d6 Stealth
d6 Streetwise
d4 Taunt

Items:
Caster
Bandoleer
Switch Blade
Small cask of Pink Lightning (White Lightning with Pomegranate Juice)
Posted on

Elves & Espers Character: Stan McStan

Stanley McStan of Clan McStan

Player: Mike

Dwarven Robomancer
Agility d6
Smarts d8
Spirit d4
Strength d6
Vigor d6

Edges:
AB: Robomancy
Arcane Familiar: Robot Cat
Low Light Vision

Hindrances:
Slow (-1 Pace)
Heroic
Big Mouth
Minor Habit

Skills:
d8 Arcane Casting
d4 Driving
d4 Fighting
d6 Knowledge Arcana
d6 Notice
d4 Piloting
d8 Repair
d6 Shooting

Powers:
Summon Robot (as shapechange)

Weapon:
Blast Pistol
Posted on

Elves & Espers Character: Idariel 7

Idariel 7

Elven Technomancer
Player: Wendy
Agility d6
Smarts d10
Spirit d6
Strength d4
Vigor d6
Edges:
AB:Technomancy
Wizard
Low Light Vision

Hindrances:
Racial Enemy: Cyborcs
Curious(M)
Loyal
Enemy(m): Duke Palliser

Skills:
d4 Investigation
d8 Arcane Casting
d8 Knowledge Arcane
d6 Shooting
d4 Lockpicking
d6 Stealth
d4 Streetwise
d6 Taunt

Powers:
Darksight
Detect/Conceal Arcana
Wandering Senses

Items:
Blast Pistol

History:

Formerly a licensed Investigator in New Ark City, Issa had her license yanked when she publically accused Duke Palliser of being demonically possessed.  Who knew that he could just be that big a jerk naturally? Now she tries to eke a living as an Adventurer, until such a time as she can regain her license.

Posted on

Elves & Espers Reboot

Tonight we started up the Elves & Espers campaign again, this time using Savage Worlds instead of my half-baked Classic D&D as SF homebrew.  I reworked the existing characters using the SW rules, but abandoning the back-story where they all came from a pre-Apocalyptic domed city (a la Fallout).  Instead they’re all beginning adventurers in one of the setting’s major futuristic cities:  New Ark City.

Unfortunately, little things in the very beginning often set the tone for the campaign, and this one got on the track to unimaginable horror… but from the GM’s point of view instead of the players… round about when the players started assigning names to their pregens.  In short order we had Bongo, Tank McSplatter of the Hobbit McSplatters, Josepi Antonio Vincente, Stanley McStan of Clan McStan, and Icca.  Oy.

update: Icca has been renamed Idariel 7

Continue reading “Elves & Espers Reboot”

Posted on

They Ramble Again!

In honor of Brian showing up for the first time in ages, and Dan forgetting his notebooks, the Rambling Bumblers rambled again!  And they didn’t even bumble!

When last we left our intrepid adventurers, they were exploring the Ice Caverns of the Moth-People (TM).  They had accidentally destroyed the crystal array that produced the shaft of blue light that powered the whole underground Moth-people city when Jacob (Doug) had killed the guardian dragon, which then crashed into the crystal array at the bottom of the shaft the city was poised above.  Seeking to ameliorate the damage, they were exploring the lower reaches of the shaft, right above the broken crystal array, where they had found a room with three mysterious empty crystal sarcophagi, four doors (behind one of which they could sense unspeakable evil), and a swirly mesmerizing pattern on the floor.  The party was trying to find out how to open the door into the unspeakable evil. That’s where we broke off, three (?) or so years ago.

The intervening years having granted them wisdom, they were now puzzled as to why it seemed so important back then to open the evil doors, and why they had been so reluctant to mess with the blue crystals themselves, other than Merath/Wendy’s paranoia about the blue light being incompatible with her own Pink Light Power(TM).  After messing around with the sarcophagi, including both Merath and Bastriel (Paul) attempting to analyze the magic of them, they concluded that

  • the crystals were controlled by the sarcophagi
  • they sarcophagi were being interfered with by evil spells emanating from behind the evil doors and warding off the two other doors

So they set out to break the bonds between the spells from the Evil Door (an arched double-door composed of greenish marble and swirling iron tracery) and the sarcophagi, and then power up the crystal array.  Since this involved actually climbing into the goo in the crystal sarcophagi and allowing it to bond with them, there was a decent amount of bravery involved.  This they succeeded in doing, though the damage to the crystal array caused it to short-circuit and spew destructive energy around, melting one of the overhead bridges and crispy-frying the dragon’s corpse before they could shut it down.  This prompted a further bout of analysis and brainstorming, during which they ascertained

  • they couldn’t repair the blue crystals, but they might be able to replace them with Pink Light Power (TM)
  • it would be insanely dangerous to the Rose Kingdom to do so unless they completely eliminated the evil influence from beyond the Evil Door

So now that they had an actual reason to explore beyond the Evil Door, they warded Jacob against any form of compulsion (see!  Wisdom!) and he hacked the doors open.  A nauseous miasma of evil puffed out of the room beyond, starting to fill the sarcophagus chamber.  Merath threw up a Pink Light Power(TM) bubble around herself and found it warded off the miasma, so she expanded it to encompass the rest of the party.

Just then, a huge shadowy figure shambled out of the Evil Room.  Despite heavy flavor text from the GM, they held off attacking it until it was revealed that this was, as the players expected, Dan’s new PC…a giant-sized member of The Pack (the wolfman race).  Dan’s character (forget the name at the moment) had been exploring a ruin in a far off area near the Wildlands, and accidentally stepped across a Nephari spiral that took him into the Evil Room, where he was nearly overwhelmed by the evil miasma.

Proceeding into the Evil Room, warding of the miasma with Pink Light Power, they found a network of spell lines coming through the Nephari spiral in the center of the room.  They succeeded mightily in the attempt to break the curse lines and the evil influence was banished.  There was some talk about whether they could destroy the spiral completely, but they were reluctant to mess with it too much (more Wisdom!).

They returned to the other room, and then to the outer bridge over the shaft, where Merath used the Pink Light Power to eliminate the corpse of the dragon…which she managed to do without vaporizing the entirety of the bottom of the shaft, exhibiting more control over the destructive aspects of the Pink Light Power than she had been able to previously.  They still had no way to regrow the blue crystals, so they decided to attempt to replace them with pink…something…to share the power of the Rose Kingdom with the Moth kingdom.  Against all odds, this succeeded without apparent complications, and now the bottom of the shaft is covered with the stylized rose symbol of the Rose Kingdom, worked out in crystal, and a shaft of Pink Light Power springs forth, illuminating the cavern, powering the devices of the Moth city and, incidentally, annexing the Moth Kingdom to the Rose Kingdom.  The new political realities of the situation have yet to be conveyed either to Queen Moth-Ra or to the Rose Princess, but the RB congratulate themselves on a job well done!  And you know, for them it totally was.  They saved the people they intended to save, thwarted evil, and there was no collateral damage this session at all.

Posted on

Classic Dungeons & Dragons: Hit Points

I mentioned before the House Rule I was intending to use for D&D to cut down on trips out of the dungeon to spend a week resting up after each room, namely that after a combat you can spend 1 GP worth of bandages and salve to “bind your wounds” back up to the the maximum on your character’s hit die (or your actual roll, whichever was less).  That is, if you’re a Magic User with 2 HP at level 1, you can bind back up to two.  If by level 3 you have 6 HP, you could restore yourself to a maximum of 4 (the most you could have rolled at 1st level).

This is mostly motivated by meta-game considerations, since it’s really boring to have a fight, retreat, rest a week, rinse and repeat all the way through the first couple of levels of a dungeon, but it prompted me once again to think about Hit Points in D&D (and similar games) and what they really represent, and I think I had a minor epiphany.  It’s well known that you can’t really interpret Hit Points as being your ability to withstand physical damage, for all kinds of reasons, but most of the proposed alternatives, no matter how hand-wavey (luck, favor of the gods, etc) aren’t very satisfactory since they don’t really match the game mechanics.  If it’s favor of the gods, for instance, why do fighters get more of it than clerics?  And why would sleeping or being tied up completely negate your destiny and allow you to be taken out with a single hit?  If it’s reflexes, why do Thieves get so little, and why is it that high Constitution helps but high Dexterity doesn’t?

Then it occurred to me: you can’t explain it as a single ability or quality, because it’s an abstraction of how hard you are to kill for all kinds of reasons based on your long combat experience.  This isn’t as silly as it may sound at first.  It happens to be true that for as far back as we have records of warfare, experienced soldiers survive longer, and one of the best predictors of success in combat is how seasoned the troops are.  It’s also not a winnowing process, where all the clumsy, slow and unlucky soldiers die, leaving only the hardy and tough ones.  Troops definitely can go through a process where they go from being green, to seasoned, then veteran.   On the other hand, you can’t keep troops in the field indefinitely or they’ll lose their edge.

So, at least in my game, in general Hit Points represent that state of combat readiness that makes the veteran soldier able to react almost instinctively to avoid all the hazards that kill the green soldiers so easily, including not just reflexes, but awareness of surrounding, mental toughness so as not to hesitate in the slightest, physical conditioning, economy of motion, and so forth.  Damage, in this view, is primarily not actual wounds but the kind of accumulated fatigue and minor injuries and strains that require not just a night’s sleep to restore but days or weeks of R&R.   Only that very first hit die represents real, sustained damage to your body, which is why almost anyone at first level can be taken out by a solid blow from almost any weapon, and anyone, no matter how experienced, can be slain instantly if they’re rendered helpless.  This also, to my mind, satisfactorily resolves why it’s Fighters and Dwarves that can improve their Hit Points the most, with Clerics, Elves, and Halflings somewhat less able, and Thieves and Magic Users, even if they’ve gone through all the same combats, lag behind.  It also fits with Constitution being the attribute that modifies Hit Points.

This fits reasonably well with my house rule on binding wounds.  On the one hand, I am letting people just patch up actual tears and holes in their flesh with a few bandages and maybe some stitches, which is a bit generous.  On the other hand, it fairly clearly establishes why it’s only that first hit die that can be restored (bandages are just no substitute for R&R).  I think it also makes for a sense that, at least for the first couple levels, all the characters are improving their physical conditioning (unless they were lucky enough to roll max HP at the start).

Posted on

Is that a dagger in your pocket, or are you Happy to see me?

Dear Knights of the Dinner Table,

I’d always read the stories from your readers, but I never thought they would happen to me….

Sunday we returned to the Old Skool stylings of the Basic D&D game, to finish up the adventure of The Haunted Keep, and things took a fairly grim turn.

The party found another room of bandits, these busy racing cockroaches, and managed to dispatch them, losing Obediah the Elf (Dan’s character) in the process. During the fight, Steve the Magic User (played by Mike) Charmed one of the bandits, and after the fight their new best buddy explained the layout of the half of the keep they were in, and how to bypass Sir Reonald and the room with the stirges by going outside and re-entering through a different exterior door.

The party did so, and easily found the merchant’s daughter they’d been searching for, Lemunda the Lovely. Before they could declare victory and go home, she inquired whether they had rescued her maid, Relda, and two man-servants. The maid was merely in the kitchen opposite, but there things took an ugly turn. When the party showed up, she called for help from Reonald, whereupon Happy Brandybuck the Halfling (suspicious that she was being allowed to cook for the bandits) stabbed her, killing her instantly. This caused Lemunda to start screaming, so they grabbed her and ran, abandoning the missing man-servants. Surprisingly to the GM, Happy didn’t bother to loot the body of the maid, who actually was carrying a gem worth 500 gp that she was planning to use to bribe them to let Reonald escape. They returned Lemunda to the town, where she promptly sought refuge with the town authorities and far away from the homicidal rescue party.

Although the end of the adventure was a bit of a downer, there was much hilarity…partially over how the Bumblers lived up to their reputation, partially over the homicidal hobbit’s pre-murder slip of the tongue (something about raking the maid with his “steely Halfling glaze”) and what this might imply about hobbit culture and culinary habits in this setting.

It was interesting, and somewhat bizarre, running an adventure from a module. Believe it or not it’s something that I haven’t really done before; unlike just about everybody I know who played D&D most of my actual D&D experience was before there was even such a thing as a published Module. The module I was using was a free one, created as a cooperative effort by people in the Dragonsfoot.org forums, and I have to say strikes me as an extremely half-baked effort. At least, I have a hard time believing that the people who created the content of the rooms actually looked at the map they were keying, since Leomunda and her maid are separated from the bandit guards by a series of rooms with only one entrance or exit, including one that the bandits have spiked shut because they’re afraid of the stirges in it, while the rooms that these captives are in have no guards and an exterior door. I decided that the door was locked and couldn’t be opened from either side without a key possessed by Reonald (or by a thief), but that still leaves twenty or so bandits guarding essentially nothing.

I don’t really know whether the group is going to want to continue these Basic D&D forays after the latest fiasco; it still has the advantage that it’s really quick to generate characters and eminently suited to days when the players present and the prepared GMs don’t line up, but I think that I might have to pour a bit more effort into prepping a better dungeon.

Posted on

Dusting off the Borderlands

Last Sunday we discussed what campaigns to run going forward, now that Russell is back in San Diego until next September.

The consensus was that we’d continue with the alternating week campaigns (so that Mike would consistently be in a particular campaign), with Dan running his Warhammer 40K Inquisition campaign (does it have a name?) and me running another…and filling in when there wasn’t a quorum with Basic D&D and one-shots.

For my campaign, while there was some enthusiasm for returning to Neng, the upshot was that we’d give Borderlands another go, although I forgot to mention reviving the Midnight Special Weird West game as a possibility. I know Wendy really liked that setting….

Anyway, in prepping to run Borderlands again I’ve been thinking about switching the system to Savage Worlds.

Savage Worlds is from the designers of Deadlands (which we used for our first Weird West campaign, Clock-Stoppers). It’s a bit like a simplified Deadlands, and a bit like the home-brew system I’ve been using. You can download a “Test Drive”

version of the system here.

Basically it’s a stat or skill vs. target number system, much like what we’ve been using, though instead of rating the tasks at various difficulties it tends to use a single Target Number of 4, applying pluses and minuses to the roll for harder or easier tasks. The advantage over what we’ve been doing that I see with it is it has a simpler way of tracking wounds, treats most npcs as “mooks” who can be taken out by a single wound, and has some nice rules for allowing not-particularly combat-skilled PCs make a significant contribution to combat by taunting or intimidating opponents, distracting them at strategic moments. Even if we don’t adopt the rules wholesale, I plan on stealing that bit.

Even if we do switch over, I plan on keeping the setting-specific rules about accumulating and spending Mojo (the reward for doing cool, cinematic stuff) and the Mundane Tricks (the plot-tricks that non-powered PCs can do to influence the scene without supernatural powers).

I’m going to see if I can get together with Doug and maybe Paul before I really try running Borderlands under Savage Worlds and run through a couple of test combats to see if it’s as fast and smooth in practice as it appears to be in the rules. Anybody who wants to download that pdf and take a look and weigh in with comments is encouraged to do so.

Posted on

D&D House Rules

I’m going to call the Basic/Expert/etc line “D&D”, distinguishing it from O(riginal)D&D (the white box), and A(dvanced)D&D. D&D is therefor the game we played last Sunday.

Demihumans and character classes

Demihumans can choose to be a different character class, so you are allowed, e.g. Elven Fighters or Halfling Thieves, and are treated exactly as any human of that class (including for level maxima) but:

1) You still must meet all the racial minima to be of that race
2) You get none of the special abilities of your race, which are assumed to come from training that you’re neglecting in order to learn the abilities of your new class, except:
a) Dwarves and Elves retain their infra-vision
c) Halflings retain their Save vs. Death Ray/Poison, and Halfling Thieves retain their racial Hide abilities.

Sharing Spells
The D&D rules forbid Magic Users letting other magic users copy spells from their books, but don’t really explain it except as a cultural prohibition (nobody wants to risk their spell-book); to make this more concrete, copying a spell from a Magic User’s book into another book erases the spell, the same way copying a spell from a scroll uses up the scroll. Magic Users teach their apprentices spells by creating a scroll with the appropriate spell, which the apprentice can then copy into their spell book per the usual rules.

Posted on

In Honor Of Gary Gygax, 1938-2008

It was thanks to Gary Gygax that I have most of my current friends, so in his honor we played Basic D&D last night, kicking it truly old skool. The group rolled up the following party (3d6, in order):

Happy Brandybucke Halfling N (Paul)
S:12 I:6 W:10 D:16 C:12 CH:16 Lvl 1 HP3 AC2 Short Sword

Obediah Elf N (Dan)
S:17 I:10 W:10 D:11 C:8 CH:12 Lvl 1 HP5 AC4 Battle-Axe

Steve Magic-User N (Mike)
S:9 I:11 W:9 D:11 C:11 CH:11 Lvl 1 HP4 AC9

Cleric of Doom C (Wendy)
S:12 I:10 W:16 D:5 C:6 CH:14 Lvl 1 HP4 AC5 Mace

Joe Shakyhand C (Doug)
S:12 I:10 W:11 D:13 C:14 CH:14 Lvl 1 HP 2 AC9 Bow

As is traditional, the group met in an inn: The White Cow, in the town of Stonebridge. After inquiring as to the entertainment available in the viscinity (greased-pig wrestling, goat racing, drinking, dicing, and fornication), the party was approached by a loquacious local wanting to know if such a (relatively) heavily armed group was planning on trying to rescue the missing heiress, Lemunda the Lovely, rumored to have been kidnapped by bandits and worth a pretty penny in ransom. Local folk have speculated that the bandits that have been preying on the caravans that pass through town may be holed-up in the… dun Dun DUN! Haunted Keep, though opinion is that they’d be pretty crazy to do so since it’s well-known that the ruins are….dun Dun DUN! Haunted!

The group, recognizing a plot-hook when it hits them in the head (all except Mike who kept blathering something about “evidence”) agreed that they would go take a look, particularly when they found out that the keep was easy to find, being visible from the road through the hills to the South. In the morning they set out.

A fine mist descended as they approached the ruins, concealing their approach, and they beheld the ruins of a keep. Two towers and a gate-house between remained standing, the rest was a burnt-out over-grown rubble. After reconnoitering the vicinity, but seeing no signs of habitation, they decided to approach the West Tower entrance. Joe Shakeyhand found no traps, and heard nothing… not that he had much chance of either as a 1st level Thief, and so they entered. Spookily, the door didn’t creak when they opened it, indicating it had been recently oiled or at least well used. After a short corridor, there was another door, which they opened after the Thief did his stuff, and gained surprise on five bandits, standing around the room and arguing with each other.

Noticing that there was an alarm horn on the wall, the intrepid adventurers made good use of their surprise round. The Cleric of Doom charged into the room and crushed the skull of an unsuspecting bandit; and Obediah the Elf hacked another into two pieces with his mighty battle-axe. Happy Brandybucke missed, and Joe–after determining that there were no rules to prevent him from firing into melee past his companions crowding the door–let fly with an arrow and also missed.

In the first actual round, the party won the initiative, and dispatched another bandit, and on their action one of bandits ran to grab the alarm horn from the wall, while the other–cursing his luck that the morale check wouldn’t happen until the end of the turn–attempted to stab the Cleric of DOoooom… coming up with a roll that wouldn’t have succeeded even if she were naked as the day she was born. He then failed his morale check, and booked it down the corridor.

Once again the party won the initiative, and before the hapless bandit could draw a breath to sound the alarm, the party descended upon him like wolves. A quick mace to the skull followed by an arrow to the throat, and he breathed his last. The final bandit, running away down the corridor, had the misfortune to run straight into Steve’s dagger, and expired.

A search of the room revealed a pair of statues (noticed but unexamined as they charged in for battle) of a man and a woman, both rather buck-toothed, and three exits doors besides the one they came in, one on each wall. The party decided to take the large brass-bound horn, both as a precaution and as loot, and examined the remaining doors. The North door opened onto an East-West corridor, with an alcove on the far side and an open door, through which Joe glimpsed a goblin. Nothing was audible at the West door, but they heard laughter and jeering of three or four people through the East door, and proceeded through, happening on a group of three bandits engaged in tormenting a large (fist-sized) spider in a wooden cage. The fight was brief and bloody, as Obediah smote one so hard (getting 5 times the damage needed to dispatch him) that the DM ruled he got an attack on the guy standing right behind–who he also hit and dispatched instantly. A quick mace to the head followed by an angry Hobbit to the groin, and that was it for the bandits. That bandit had a gold earring, which the party pocketed. After some arguing with the cleric, she decided not to release the fist-sized spider.

At this point we decided to break for the night.

XP for the session: 10/bandit = 80 xp / 5 PCs = 16 xp each.
Treasure for the session: 1 brass-bound horn (10 gp), 1 gold earring (20 gp)