Friday 28 October 2011

Crowns, Kings and Princesses

There was no Yoon-Suin game this week, alas, due to noisms' busy schedule, but all is not lost! Tomorrow my group returns to the Carrion Crown campaign Adventure Path, picking up right after the death of one of our own. I'm not sure how I feel about this campaign Adventure Path, as it seems to have some serious flaws -- I know Paizo's adventures are praised, but they've all seemed a bit choppy to me -- but it's still early days so we'll see how it goes.

I don't know if Ben -- our GM -- is himself dissatisfied with Carrion Crown, if it's a case of gamer ADD springing up, or if it's just because the nights are drawing in and Halloween approaches, but it's been suggested that I run Call of Cthulhu once again. A couple of years ago I ran a short and unsatisfying campaign for the game, an experience that deserves a post mortem on this blog one day, but this time I'm going to try to run Tatters of the King, as it seems to be the only campaign that Stuart and Ben haven't read. It's an interesting piece, with some obvious problems that I suspect won't turn out to be problems at all in play, and a clever structure that should suit our group well. So I'm preparing to run that, although I have no idea when or if I will get the chance; it may come to nothing.

I also bought a boxed role-playing game this week. Not the Pathfinder Beginner Box -- I was tempted, but in the end I didn't see any practical point in owning it -- but instead Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Role Playing. I've had the free pdfs for a while and I like James Raggi's version of D&D best of all the retroclones -- the game features ascending armour values, a non-fussy elf class and excellent encumbrance and thief skill mechanics -- so I took advantage of the current LotFP sale and some spare PayPal cash to get the boxed set for about six quid. I suspect I will never be able to get my group to play it -- the irony is that it would suit Carrion Crown very well -- but at least I have it now. Well, I don't have it yet, but it's on its way.

5 comments:

  1. I don't know if you'd be interested, or if you've seen it already, but there's a great audio series of a group running though the entirety of "Tatters of the King." It might be useful for prep, or to try to gauge how your own players will react to the same situations. If you're interested, email me, as I can't seem to find it online anymore.

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  2. am loving Carrion up the Crown El Kel. Just want to play in something. & I am a firm believer in having rest time between 'arcs' in a story, as well as rotating GM duties. PLUS, it gives a good change of pace, & keeps the variety up in our gaming. & I am feeling tired. My mum's health, now seemingly on the up (she is eating food!).... has brought relief - and the resultant draining of tension... and thus tiredness!

    You are never going to run any more PF & I am hoping I can get into the right mindset for some mindblasting Cthulhoid action. If we spend some time setting it up, I am confident we can bring it to life/ undeath properly together. Hopefully this one will feel a better experience for you as well! Playing it in 4-6 week arcs, on a weekly basis with a stable (?) group of players should help in that regard too. :)

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  3. I have to say, I'm feeling a lot more positive about Carrion Crown now, so no worries on that. Either way, it wasn't the way you were running it that bothered me, but the way it seemed to be written.

    I would consider running Pathfinder using the simpler rules in the new box, but I don't think we'd ever go back to that now we've been spoiled by the full game.

    Anyway, there's Savage Eberron and The One Ring to play too!

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  4. Hello there!
    I just moved to Brighton to study and have no knowledge of RPG groups around, do you still meet?
    Add me on facebook if you still have a chair for one more character in your group, please?

    my e-mail is emaildabin@gmail.com

    Cheers.

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  5. Hello The Binn! Your best bet is to join the Yahoo Group -- the link is over there on the right -- and ask around there for available games.

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