Tales Of Blades GM book arrives

The GM book for Ganesha Games "Tales of Blades and Heroes" RPG came out yesterday, and I've  purchased and downloaded a copy today. First thought was that "Tales of Beasts and Perils - Vol. 1" doesn't obviously link itself to the first core book (other than a quick reference on the back cover). This isn't really a problem though as it mentions it just fine on the product page, and as a download you'll be there first, but would have expected a "Tales of..." mention on the front page. Included in your downlaoded .zip file are font and back cover pages and the rulebook text in full colour (47pgs), ink saving (47pgs) , and condensed ink saver (28pgs) format.

Anyway, this supplement really makes the system playable in giving example and guidlines form monster/opponent creation (including basic suggestions for converting profiles from the "Songs Of Blades and Heroes" wargame). There are a few other standard pieces for GM books: advice on running a game, item generation, etc, but the meat of the book is about what the characters will meet on their adventure, including standard race traits.

This book answers most the questions I had after reading the first core book, and gives enough examples and ideas to fill quite a few of the remaining blanks. I'd say it was an essential purchase if you are thinking about using the "Tales of..." rule system. It'll certainly save you alot of work from using the core book alone

TALES of Blades and Heroes

Unexpectedly, I now have a copy of the long awaited RPG based on Songs Of Blades and Heroes. I say unexpectedly because up until I saw the notice on TMP, I had no real interest in it. Suddenly I saw the news and immediately "rushed out" (ie clicked through to the Ganesha Games website) to buy it. I then read a review - I know, I know it should be done the other way round, but what-the-hey!

Now I've not been able to start reading the rules yet so can't pass constructive comment. The review above sounds pretty positive to me. I'm especially looking forward to seeing how the magic rules work out (using magic words to create an player chosen effect) as they sound quite flexible.
For the meagre amount of money you have to splash (< $10 US) you get a download with a full colour (and I mean full coloured pages) copy and an ink saving version (which is a nice option) of the 56 page core book. The artwork through the book will be familiar to anyone who has the "Songs of..." rulebooks, as half of it is literally same but with colour, which is fine as it's function here is to add flavour and break up the text. The various sections are colour coded, so as you flick through the book you can clearly see where they start and finish, making finding those magic or special rules easier. When you've wasted as much time as me endlessly flicking past the same few pages in a book in search of a chapter as me this is very welcome. There isn't an index to the book, but the contents is very comprehensive and the sections short so it shouldn't be too much of a pain. The various tables are also collected in 3 quick reference pages at the back to help speed things up.
Basically I'm hoping that this will build on the SOBH/Roleplay experiment I tried a while back. If the system is as simple to pick up as SoBH I hopeful that ArabianSquire will be able to play. Anyway, I need to read it first.

Bigger boys came and stole my pants!

So the party are heading back home for a rest and hopefully a reward. We've been marching and (not) resting through a day long storm when we are approached by a beast. This beast turns out to be The Werewolf of Mirkwood, who starts to batter everyone to make a point, without breaking sweat (as the GM is at pains to point out). Then he whistles and his pet comes over the mountain and lands.

Then to add insult to injury he stole the Hobbit's Mithril pants (which apparently were his in the first place) and made off on the back of his tame Elder Dragon.

Sometimes its obviously worth underlining that you are not the most powerful beings in your gaming world! And also setting up future encounters that we'd rather not have. Mission accomplished I believe.

A Thong and a merry dance

The party face off against the marsh dwellers.
Note the system battle mat which shows the combat stance and
not the physical position of the character

The conclusion of the introductory One Ring adventure was played out last night, with much enjoyment all round again. We actually managed to have all the players round at the same time which was a bonus! The Party managed to blunder and flounder our way through the Mirkwood forest before being forcibly drawn toward the final showdown area, what appeared to be a dis-used temple.

It never seems to amaze me how we all manage to fail what seem to be the most mundane of dice rolling tests. One such episode of head-in-hands rolling left Paul, who has only played 3 RPG sessions in his life, wondering what to do as the rest of the party wandered trance-like into a fetid pond leaving him on his own in the hostile wilderness. It's certainly keeping our GM on his toes thinking of awful consequences as we roll the "Sauron" symbol with alarming regularity. Conversely we seem to roll the hallowed "Gandalf" symbol for completely improbable innocuous searches, leaving him with coming up with a suitable, but not game breaking results. A fine example of this is one of the dwarfs rather optimistically searching for a mythril shirt in a treasure pile of gold coins. The player rolled a Gandalf (which guarantees a success) and a six in his dice making it an extra-ordinary success. So the dwarf spied a glint of mithril in the pile, but far from being the mail shirt he was looking for I think it's suffice to say that the hobbit now has the best protected "crown jewels" in the land!

Duck! The Hobbit is Shooting

Most the RPGers came round to the hobby shed last night for Session 2 proper of "The One Ring" last.


**** SPOILER ALERT *****

We are playing the introductory adventure, so be aware some details may appear. This isn't an AAR though.

The party (2 Dwarves, and Elf and a Hobbit) have been given a quest to find a couple of Dwarves who have disappeared into the wilderness carrying an important artifact. We must track them down and return with the artifact. Starting in Dale we've wandered down and eventually found ourselves punting through the Long Marches and Northern Mirkwood. The system forces the players to look at their character skills and adopt different set roles in the traveling group, which is a nice change from the usual "marching order" which make the group feel like everyone has a role to play within the group, instead of the Elf or Ranger taking all the tests!

Combat was introduced in the first session, with the "to hit" targets on both sides being dictated by the aggressiveness to the fighting style rather than just a skill stat. We fought off some large tree spiders and were feeling pretty confident in the second session when a Troll lurched out of the marsh waters to devour us. I would like to say we duly dispatched it, but in truth the GM felt he needed to give an unsubtle tactical hint towards the end, as we had an unconscious Hobbit, an near exhausted Elf with a broken bow, an axe-less Dwarf and another near exhausted Dwarf. Once you add in the fact that the Elf is now corrupted by shadow after autopsy-ing the Troll(?), one of the main fighters only has a dagger left and, after a mix of words, a Hobbit has a reputation for fancy underwear, it's been an eventful night!

I fear for the party for when the GM starts to actually throw some serious challenges at us...

First Taste of The One Ring

The other night we happily got back to some roleplaying after too long a time (nearly a year). One of the group has bought up The One Ring by Cubicle 7.

We went over the basic system tonight as a couple of the crew couldn't make it. To be fair it was down to Paul getting married on Saturday, so understandable and the best of wished to him and his missus to be.

Anyway I think it's fair to say that we are all looking forward to it. For those who know Dungeons and Dragons 4e it's the complete opposite from that. Combat is abstract, with no map to place miniatures on, rather the combat target numbers are based on how aggressively you are approaching that round of combat. Also the combat focuses not on wounding, but recognises that just fighting is a tiring business, so all attacks cause fatigue. So a heavily armoured dwarf can but beaten to the ground exhausted despite being in no danger of taking a wound.

There is also a great deal on party dynamics, roles with the party and saying true to your alignment, which is nice. . When stats like fatigue get low they can be boosted by luck. The interesting party is that the low number of luck points avaible for this is a PARTY pool, so everyone has to agree when and to whome these valuable points go. As the group are all friends it should not only work well, but create some amusing banter aside to the usual dwarf/elf name calling. Not that that's not fun.

Probably as I'm a wargamer I'm looking for some roleplaying in my RPGs now-a-days, and a bit less overcomplicated miniature moving (like D&D 4e). I have many other games that I play that are specifically designed for that. This game at first glance looks like it forces the issues and roles that usually get ignored for adventuring parties in most other rpgs. If it hold it's first impressions it may well become my favourite system to play, I'm looking forward to it that much!

Exploring The Narrative Campaign

A while ago now I was exploring the idea of having more narrative focus on my campaign. I used a D&D story and acted out the encounters with a Skirmish Ruleset, Songs Of Blades and Heroes. Now this year has been quite frustrating in terms of my "regular" RPG group meeting up. Click on the RPG tag and see how few session reports there have been. One silver lining may be that I've had alot of fun with a few games Star Wars Pod racing, but I missed the regular RPG sessions.

We had managed to start a D&D 4e campaign, which a many readers will know/complain about is very focused on the miniature battle side of things for an RPG. I thought I'd try and take it from the other side, and play a skirmish level wargame that had a bit more character definition and the chance of a story campaign. Being a Two Hour Wargames fan I bought "Warrior Heroes: Armies and Adventures" (hereon WHAA) , as this offered up the promise of such an experience. Other attractions were the prospect of everyone playing on the same side; a random (but linked) encounter generation system; and an system defined opposition that was based on the player force strength. This last feature is hopefully a winner, as it will still allow us to play if someone (or even everyone except me) call off.

So three of us gathered on Tuesday Evening (predictably there had been one reluctant call off due to work, MacSver) to roll up some forces and our first encounter. WHAA includes the defined world of Talomir - with different nations, races, and army lists. It also allows each Player Character (or "Star" in rule-speak) to have an accompanying force, should they wish. I'm sure as player numbers fluxuate we can include these extra grunts or not as we see fit. After reading the country descriptions, etc and what seemed like an age rolling on force generation tables we ended up with the following character forces (some extra fan made attribute rules were used):

Arabianknight:
Melee Adventurer/Warrior from Ekra (Setting Sun alignment)
Rep 4, Hardiness 1, Weapon: Long Sword, Armour: (4) Chain w/some Plate
Social Standing: 0
Combat Value: 2
Attributes: Slow, 1HW Master
Recruits: 0 (due to a social standing of 0)

Azhdeen:
Skirmisher (Missile) Adventurer/Healer from Mirish (Rising Moon alignment)
Rep 4, Hardiness 1, Weapon: Long Bow, Armour: (2) Partial Leather
Social Standing: 1
Combat Value: 2
Attributes: Dimwitted, Loot
Recruits: Skirmisher, Clibnari (x2), Hykar Cavalry

MysteriousPaul:
Archer (Missile) Adventurer from Capalan (Twilight alignment)
Rep 4, Hardiness 1, Weapon: Long Bow, Armour: (2) Partial Leather
Social Standing: 1
Combat Value: 2
Attributes: Agile, Coward
Recruits: City Spearman, Archer, Knight (x2)

As we were all from different countries of origin a central country was picked with a vague background story. After another age rolling on tables to generate a opposing force we were away to try and get at least a small amount of gaming in. In the future I'll have to try and prep the games by rolling up the opposition before everyone arrives, as it not only takes time to generate the force, but you have to look out appropriate figures etc which is bit of a waste of our precious time when assembled.
 
We managed a few turns of the battle, but all the table rolling had taken it's toll on the clock and we had to wrap up. I'll not document the battle until after next time as I attempt to chronicle the story as it unfolds. We'll see out a few campaign turns and see how we are enojying the whole experience I'm sure.

Miracles CAN happen

Session 2 of our D&D adventure finally happened this week. All 5 people in the same place (at the same time) - how exciting. I won't bleat on about how frustrating it's been this year trying to get the game going, we'll just bask in the glow of gaming and remember the sweet sound of dice rolling (this is D&D 4e after all).

Last session left our level one heroes puffing and panting after defeating a room full of kobolds. This time round we were treated to more kobolds to see if we'd actually learned anything. We had, slowly, but also quickly learned that tiles can hide trap triggers. The poor Gnome caught a few darts in the side of the head from someone else's foot going "click". This was apparently so funny that whenever a tile went click everyone looked over to see where the gnome was!

The next  room had kobolds up on 10 foot plinths (out of harms way from some of our melee dependent characters and a tantalising pit of slime that unfortunately everyone resisted the urge to jump over. Ranged attacks and the introduction of a couple of small dragon-like creatures saw our first unconscious PC and a rash of healing surges, but we've survived to the foes in the next room - next session.

As a group we are starting to get the hang on the D&D abilities system, but still fumble around a bit. Also finding the correct stat on the character sheet when required is causing delay all round. When we're more familiar with this I'm sure we'll manage to start thinking about more strategic play rather than what we are all doing at the moment which is more all fighting a common foe.

The Half Orc Paladin

If a brief flurry of bristles I managed to squeeze off a mini for one of my D&D characters - Mord the Half Orc Paladin. Not surprisingly these are pretty thin on the ground, so I've painted up a Games Workshop Lord of the Rings Mordor Orc. The helmet covers most the racial features and the LOTR sculpts are quite slim, so he doesn't stand out too much. In fact he's almost puny by orc-ish standards. No wonder he turned to religion and hangs out with a gnome! His the colours chosen are to match the robes of his mentor.

The pupil and the Master

Why a Gnome cleric? Because this is the figure that I painted for the last ill-fated D&D 4e campaign that David tried to run. It unfortunately only lasted 2 sessions, so a return of the Gnome is on was on the cards (even if he is more heavily built than his Half-orc charge!).

Also significantly it takes me over my painted/bought threshold. I'm in the black. Although 10 RTB01 Space Marines came through the door today to plunge me back under. But for nearly 10 hours I was up - hurrah for me!

RPG Adventure Call

I don't normally post video clips (especially as I don't watch this show) but this one is too funny not to:


A comedy take on the TV Adventure phone-in game, courtesy of "Limmy's Show"
(Warning: As this is a Scottish show, some viewers may need to look at the comments for the odd translation)

There are others, but he next best I think is the RPG newbie call…

This last one will definately be causing a few "Get Troll" instructions next D&D session.

First D'n'D session at last

A late attempt by fate to sabotage the evening (via the underhand tactic of project deadlines) was cast aside for us to finally get a Dnd 4e session played (albeit one player down). It's taken 2 years of trying for our DM, David, so congratulations must go to him.

The party consisted of my Gnome cleric and Half-Orc paladin (don't ask!), a Human rogue, an Elven ranger and a Tiefling wizard. The experienced and eagle eyed among you will have spotted a weakness in this party - the distinct lack of melee fighters. Something which we were about to find out first hand. As long as we could manouver ourselves into space, keeping some distance between ourselves and our foes we should be fine. So obviously the DM put us in an encounter in the twisting tunnels of a dungeon!
Non mook kobolds bobbed, weaved and stabbed their way round corners whilst we fumbled our way round characters sheets and newly aquired feats. Everyone at least settled down into the spirit of the game with the male elf being refered to in the feminine throughout, short-arse jokes aimed at the gnome and everyone laughing as it was pointed out that the rogues attempt to sneak across a room in full view was really him just lightly tiptoeing towards a fully aware enemy. Another learning point in this game that the non-mook kobolds were easily capable of surviving several of our mighty first level attacks.
Anyway the party emerged slightly worn and sticky but intact from our encounter, and we look forward to taking on our second room next session (this could be a looooong dungeon adventure at this rate!).

Character Rolls



One face to play them all...



Firstly apologies for the lack of posts over the last week. School midterm break knocked me from my usual routine (or as close as I have to one). Talking of sources of discontent is my static painting total. I've been painting a Cryx Reaper and Slayer in tandem (being so similar), and they are bogging me down with fiddly painting and making dispiriting progress. I need to press on and get them done (at least to the pre-rust effect stage) and have a breather with something smaller and quicker. Anyway, enough whinging and onto the proper post.

A couple of weeks ago we finally managed to get the Dungeons and Dragons 4th Ed ball rolling, after many delays. Well, when I say rolling, perhaps a fairer description would be we mounted the tee, pegged up the ball and addressed it. Yup, that old chestnut, the character creation session was had. And with 2 DnD newbies in the group and only one set of player manuals progress was pretty slow. We all hold DnD as the standard archetypal fantasy roleplaying game so it seems strange that, despite playing several other systems, creating a character is such an unfamiliar and complicated procedure. So many racial, class and sub class options are available that you almost feel that you have to be an experienced player to really create the character you want. Pease note that I said character you want and not the most powerful character possible - that's another well trod topic for "discussion" for another day...

After some debate I've volunteered to play 2 characters to help make up the party numbers. This usually means one main character and one supporting actor. This is a bit more tricky in 4th Ed as the number of skills and feats each character has means that you can't just forget the support troop and bring him in for battle, d20 vs weapon skill a few times then pack him back into the gaming table bag of holding until the next combat encounter. Paying him/her no attention will lead to much "what's this feat do?" delays mid game or missing out on skills that could have been used. Unfortunately this also means that I was faced with the prospect of fumbling through the character creation process twice.

Thankfully I found an old install of the Character Creator from a couple of years ago (the last time we tried to get a game up and running). So a few race, class and autofill button clicks later I have a Lawful Good Cleric Halfling and Paladin Half Orc team ready to face the big world. I know this is cheating a bit, but call me old school but I like to think that as long as I have a character with stats vaguely suited to the their class I can try to roleplay the rest. I find there's nothing like finding interesting ways to work round character limitations to getthe most connection, and ultimimately enjoyment, from an RPG.

Now to find the figure(s) to use on the table,and a couple of character defining quirks to make the DM's life tricky (although we all know that in practice it'll just make my time more tricky).

Switch to Plan C

(I've already used Plan B)

One day David will get to start running his D&D 4e adventure. I suspect all those embittered 3.5 player's voodoo sessions are starting to finally kick in. After we'd finished our fun XCrawl adventure David was lined up to run a D&D 4e adventure. He's been patiently waiting between Lothian Gamers usual Sunday Sessions and our fortnightly midweek game for probably a couple of years now and finally a slot became available. Unfortunately it is are proving to be as frustrating to get through as the Doors of Durin. Since November we've had to call off due to illness, weather, christmas, broken technology, dementia and even invasion force from France! So I shouldn't have been suprised when this Monday's session fell foul of the 3.5 players Hex as well.

As luck should have it, though, the one person who could make it plays Warmachine, so we managed a quick game to re-start the Bronzed Steam Punk Wheels in my head for the upcoming WM League at our local store. The fact that we both play Cryx and are actually each others first League opponents meant that there were probably quite a cards being played close to the chest, but as both us had new units to try out we grabbed hold of the opportunity. In my table prep before the game I got a bit excited when reaching to the terrain shelves (it's been a months since my last game) and put FAR too much scenery on the table for a warmachine game, but you live and learn - at least it looked good. I'm afraid I was too mentally strained to take any pictures or notes for a battle report, so a evening summary will have to do.

Poor MacSver was looking to test out his Cylena Raefyll & Nyss Hunters unit but became stuck between some hedges and an Epic Asphyxious Caustic Mist barrage and never came into play much (although the a couple of LOS rules were cleared up - so not wasted) also blocking off his mechanithralls. I got to see my newly painted Mechanithralls in action for the first time, which was nice, but I still don't know how to set-up and use my DeathJack properly (despite reading loads of guides on the web!). I did learn that my Skarlock Thrall isn't particularly useful with eAsphyxious. And the combo of Denegrha's feat and a Pistol Wraith almost killed the big warcaster! Again lessons learned in the battlefield stick longer than those on paper!

The end result was not important (although I technically won ;-) ) and I must thank MacSver for his patience as I floundered through each turn trying to remember what each unit could do.

XCrawling to Fame and Fortune

My RPG group finished our XCrawl level (and trial game) last night, leaving the game with a selection of cash, vials and dungeon sponsor's credit notes for golf equipment - I kid you not. The final room was a labyrinth test whilst avoiding an aging, chain smoking Medusa in an over sized hamster ball. The dungeons were an entertaining mix of classic dungeon crawl and sponsor saturated game show. In which other game can you open a treasure chest and find pouch of gold coins, an enchanted baseball bat, and a six pack of Friki-Choo Cola? We all agreed that our GM, Azhdeen, had done a great job merging the two strange ideas and that in the future it would be fun to run a longer campaign, so cheers buddy.

It would be interesting to do a bit of roleplaying outside the dungeon/gameshow - meeting the public, effects on the group as different characters become more famous/vilified/rewarded than others - even "crawl fixing" anyone? These external factors could even be done out of game in secret GM emails to the players or given to the whole group as press releases. I don't know if that's already in the game (not having read the book), but it would certainly be interesting.

A Dungeon Crawl with a difference

Roleplaying night last night came round again. As previously mentioned we're taking a break from the Warhammer Fantasy 1st Ed for a while, leaving it open for other players to step into the GM's shoes and for us all to try something new.

Last night saw Azhdeen start a Xcrawl game (for 2 or 3 sessions). XCrawl is a dungeon crawl based rpg, but with a difference - there's a TV audience. That's right, the adventurers are adventuring for cash, fame, fortune and possibly a lurative sponsorship deal to carry into the next dungeon level. The first session was good fun, with the challenges for the initial training section to the hushed silence of the crowd during the first real dungeon room all being mentioned by the GM to create an exciting atmosphere. The engine is based on the D&D 3.5 ruleset, so a couple of the players were familiar enough with the rules to help out us more novice crawlers. Looking forward to the next session. I'll let you "watch" the highlights show now (thanks to Azhdeen), which gives a good idea of the play and the theme:

--------------------

Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen, to the XCrawl highlights show. This evening, we will look at the new and improved Division 4 Crawl in Brooklyn. The team chosen for this first lethal crawl, were a real mixed bunch - Half-Orc Barbarian, Elven Rogue, Dwarven Cleric, Human Envoker and Human Fighter.

The prelimanary warm up for the team, was an obstacle course; laid out in the Gymnasium. Most of the team got across the first mud pit ok, but as you will see from this clip; the fighter didn't fair so well.

Fighter grabs the rope, pushing off; but suddenly losing his grip on the slick rope to come crashing down in the waist high mud beneath.

Mind you folks, the rest of the team didn't fair well on the next one; with most of them tripping over the own feet in the tire obstacle. Cuts to a montage of the half-orc, mage and cleric, tripping or falling face first into the tyres.
Failing to Enfeeble the Giant cardboard cut out, the team had to face the awesome Mechanical Ogre. It's 10' arms giving several of the team, painful bruises; they will remember in the morning. With the final cage trap passed, the team faced the Goblin Tennis Ball Gunners. The two man team opening fire first on the mage, as he exited the cage at full speed towards the tower.

In a moment of insipred genius (for a half-orc that is), the Barbarian started to hack the legs of the tower. This must have thrown the gunners off their aim, I know it would have thrown mine off; as they missed hitting any of the team racing to the bottom of the tower. While the rest were busy figuring out how to get to the top, the fighter was already taking care of the Goblins. With some spectacular marksmanship, he managed to take both of the Goblins out.

Cuts to a scene of both javalins, streaking through the air; to take first one then the other Goblin between the eyes.

With the roar of the crowd in their ears, the team claimed their rewards from Commissioner Leibrock. After the break, we will see how the team got on; later in the Crawl. What you will see, is something truly awesome.
 
Welcome back, XCrawl fans. Before the break, we saw our intrepid team battling their way through the first part of the crawl. Despite this first part being non-lethal, they didn't come through it unscathed. A few cuts and bruises, not all of them to the ego.

Coming up, we have the Prisoner Room. 3 unfortunate cheerleaders imprisoned in a room with 5 Orcs, luckily for our team though; the Orcs didn't know they were being set up. As you will see from this AVS clip, the Orcs being their natural dumb selves; weren't even aware the team were behind them. We in the studio, thought the hulking half orc would have given the game away; but he seemed to take the agility of a cat. Climbing out of the tunnel, the team had a great plan; sadly the elf blew it by tripping at the wrong moment.

It was a hard fought battle, that ensued; with both the Rogue and Fighter going down to the baseball bat of the Orc. Meanwhile the Mage was going great guns, knocking two of the Orcs unconscious; with a dazzling display of colour and light. It seemed to be all over then, as the Half Orc, just barrelled through the remaining Orcs. Finishing the last one, it looked like the Half-Orc could well have been perfecting his Signature moves.

As our fans will know, Signature Moves go a long way; to distiguish a Great XCrawler from the wannabe's. Maybe next week, we will see; if the Half-Orc has worked out the kinks in his Signature Move.

I hope you have enjoyed this first foray in to lethal Division 4, catch us next week for more coverage of this excting change to your favourite sport. Till next time, goodnight.

Clothes maketh the man (or woman!)

As previously posted my RPG group have finished a significant episode in their campaign. They have also reached the stage where their career options are more varied (ironically due to the restrictions in career advancement on their current paths) and a couple of them are changing direction slightly. Geddi the dwarf, currently a Judicial Champion, has decided to become a witch hunter - a decision which is story based so is perfectly natural. Grendel, the thief/cleric has decided to become an assassin, which quite frankly is no surprise at all! Heinrich is becoming a more experienced mercenary, going down the sergeant and captain line and Max, well, has his life in front of him, having only just recently joined the party.

As we are having a break for Warhammer this also gives me time to consider changing the miniatures the players are using for ones more akin with their development. This is all of course just a thought at the moment. If the players identify with their figure as their character and don't want to change that is fine (& cheaper!) for me. But as a "good" gamer, it never does any harm to look, does it???

As a quick and easy starter I've just gone to the Reaper website and used their useful "Figure Finder" app to pull up some ideas:

Dwarven Witchfinder:

Human Female Assassin:

Mercenary Sergeant/Captain:

Human Ranger:

All pictures are from the Reaper Mini site (used without permission but with due acknowledgement and admiration)

The End of Death On The Reik

Battling the Skaven

This week the RPG crew came round and to see out the final points of "Death On The Reik". This whole published adventure has been good fun, but I've enjoyed this final assault on the Castle especially. No one encounter really tests the characters to the edge of death, but there are so many of them, all in one long night, there is no chance of stopping and resting up for a day. This relentless pace meant that by the time the band were confronted by only 4 skaven some were almost reluctantly engaging them in battle. Geddi the Dwarf (currently a Judicial Champion) has had a more healing potion than ale; Kronenburg the mage is all but out of magic points and having to resort to throwing an enchanted rope at the enemy; Kislev and Heindrich (the two human fighters-ish) are just swinging wearily away; Grendel the thief/cleric is having to wade into the fight; and Max the Ranger type is at the back holding the coats, having lost the use of an arm, limping badly, and low on health (and fate points) from fights in the last two sessions. To cut a long story short - all's well that ends well, which in the Warhammer world translates to they escaped with there lives and little else. Scant reward for their all efforts - at least they've finally got a chance to spend some XP!

Gone but not forgotten

Additionally at the end of this session everyone (or at least the two players in question) agreed that we should scale down the party. At the start of the whole "The Enemy Within campaign" we started off with 4 players (and 4 characters) but 2 players left after only a few sessions, leaving the other 2 to look after the characters as T.E.W. can't really be played with on 2 PCs. Gradually a couple of extra players have come in but opted to play their own characters, which is fine, but I've felt for a while that not only was party too powerful for most encounters, which is easily patched by adding a couple more enemies. More importantly it was taking away from the character roleplaying element of the game for the two incumbent players, as they had to deal with their extra hanger-on characters and couldn't fully get "into the zone" for either their original chosen character or their extra charge. So with this break in the adventure Kislev (the ex-footpad with mercantile ambitions) and Kronenburg (the mage) are taking their leave to follow their paths elsewhere. Who knows if and how they may meet their former colleagues again??

Nearly there

So close. Finally, on the 3rd attempt, everyone in my RPG group managed to get round the table at the same time this week. As the grand finale of Warhammer's "Death on The Reik" was looming we wanted everyone at the session to see the end out. So rather predictably we ran out of time and the final half sessions worth will have to played out next time. I suppose at least there will be time to spend all that XP before they go home.

Trying to get this adventure concluded is reminding me of the Sir Lancelot attack in The Holy Grail - it's taken an inordinate amount to time to get here and there is a rediculous amount of hacking and slashing once the moment comes.

The evening had 2 battles in it, which is where the time went. We have 4 players running 6 characters at the moment so when the opposition are added in they can take up some time, especially as a few of the PCs have multiple attacks. The final main battle was had (pictured top) in the lab. Which brings me onto my first topic - the use of themes in the gaming environment.

*****SPOILER ALERT******

All the way through the Inner Bailey area of the castle the players have been entertained, confused and intimidated by some of the bizarre and imaginative encounters set in the castle. The final main battle happens in a mock-up of Frankenstein’s lab complete with monster. Now while this is a cool setup and was capable of throwing some choices for the players, after all the off the wall encounters this was summed up by one of the gang mid description as "Oh, this is Frankenstein’s lab". A nice setting for a battle, with a certain amount of familiarity, but in this case I couldn't help but think that it was slightly out of kilter with the rest of the castle and perhaps an anticlimax.

Now I know some of you will just say, "You're the GM, if you weren't happy with it you should have changed it", but the thought hadn't occurred until the scene was being played out - so too late. Having not written the adventure myself the change in flavour at the end passed me by on reading.

The point of this is really just the thought - if you are designing a close series of encounters, be they chaos, forest, subterranean or urban try to keep the feel of the series throughout for a more satisfying experience. You can change it for the next set.

Fall Back to Plan B

Last minute call offs. Unfortunate but hopefully unavoidable (assuming it’s a case of ill health or real life and not a case to poor attitude).

As mentioned in the previous RPG post, we are all set to wrap up this segment of the campaign with one last session. But with a call off it was decided to postpone so that everyone in the party can enjoy the climax they've been working towards these past few months. But with the rest of the players arriving (and to be honest enlightening me to the situation) there was the burning issue of what to play. We're mid action, so no one-off side quest, pulling out a skirmish game would take too long to set-up, so over to the games shelf. Being a fantasy game, and having recently played it my hand wandered toward Heroquest, but this was poo-pooed as the game play was co-operative. The players in the group aren't so much competitive, but just like the idea of raining on each others parade game-wise. So, under the brief of similar but different, "The Classic Dungeon" was pulled out.

The Classic Dungeon is a dungeon crawl game where the aim is to get a certain wealth of loot to win. The rooms are organised into 6 different difficulty levels, with each room having a treasure and a monster. In theory the higher the level the more difficult the monster but the better the loot. The game is all the more entertaining by virtue of the fact that the other players get to roll the monsters attack dice, hits more often than not resulting in missed turns and dropped goodies. By the end of the game we'd also worked in a couple of the advanced rules - namely the one where you can ambush your fellow players and nick their prized treasure. In the end MacSver had won an very enjoyable game. I thought I'd best mention that as he claims he rarely wins any games he plays. It's total rubbish, but I don't want to upset him.

As for the roleplaying - there's always next week. I'll look out a different game just in case this time though. As I've said before - fun is too important to be just left to chance!

NB: Forgot to pull out the camera, so photo's cheekily lifted from the excellent Boardgamegeek site. Any please get in touch if this offends anyone.

You Need Friends

Another session in Castle Wittgenstein and the pace has well and truly changed. Almost gone are those memories of tactical battle and assault as the Inner Bailey slowly unravels it's bizarre wonders in a series of separate locations. SPOILER ALERT - if you plan to play "The Enemy Within" campaign or the "Death On The Reik" supplement stop reading now - you have been warned!

The writers of are on top form for this section of the adventure. Most locations are tackled (as written) in isolation, but set the players on an unsettling journey through the effects of chaos magic. They don't know what may lie behind each door, and the groans of worry on the request for a willpower roll are a joy to behold as they experience new horrors in sight and sound. The good thing here is that although everyone they meet is mutated and warped by their exposure this does not necessarily change them into a homicidal maniac. Odd and deranged, yes, but not nasty. In fact last night’s theme could almost be called "Friends", albeit in a twisted, dark Warhammer Fantasy way.

This RPG post is a bit more of a session report than normal, as one of the players was missing and so missed all his character's fun, cockroach eating, off wine drinking and female companion flirting with a giant man/roach mutant! That'll teach you to watch that Chinese food, WeeBaldie!

First encounter was with the figurehead of the Family - Ludwig Von Wittgenstein. He has hidden himself away at the top of a tower as the exposure of warpstone had turned him into a six foot cockroach mutant, kept company by his friends - thousands of real cockroaches which scuttled inches deep on the floors, walls and dropped from the ceilings. Ludwig studies the arts, sings, plays the harpsichord and it utterly charming and friendly. So much so that even our notoriously unforgiving party, after crunching through a couple of floors, chatted, had a brandy and left him be (despite the earlier precautions of pouring lamp oil round the floor).



Entering the Main residence to get out of the storm overhead, the old mutated butler greeted them at the door way and offered them food and wine (even if it was months past its best) before wandering off for a snooze (one that the thief Grendel made sure he'll never wake from - "just in case"). Following the stairs to the dungeons brought the party into conflict with the Ogre jailer before finding the deranged and broken figure of the old village physician hanging in a cage and proclaiming his torturer his friend and carer (see more friends). Left for the hopeless wretch he was the party released some villagers and even a tax man from the cells before heading upstairs where they encountered one Ludwigs son's - a mutant who lived in a small room where he also lived with his friends - stuffed animals (birds, boars, bears, birdfolk, mutants, beastmen, servants, etc) all on display to keep him company. He flew into a frenzied mad rage when one of the party touched one of his friends though and was quickly put out of his misery.

Grendel found a replacement glass eye for herself though, so that was nice. Heindrich also finally managed to draw his magic sword. He's spent every session since about April or May trying to pass a willpower roll to do this (much to everyones amusement), so you can appreciate the sense of occassion when this herculian task was accomplished! He's found it to be a non-magical armour negating warpblade. Maybe next time maybe we'll actually meet someone wearing any armour so he can take advantage of it...

Next session should see the climax to this segment as the gang close in on the main heads of the household and the warpstone meteorite they seek...