The Fellowship of the Railroad

As previously reported, we wrapped up our Call of Cthulhu campaign a couple of weeks ago, and with our Pathfinder campaign(s) still on hiatus, there's been a bit of a gap in our gaming schedules.

Stuart stepped into the breach first with a Barbarians of Lemuria one shot and his thoughts on the game prompted some of my own. As he says in his post, the scenario was a bit linear to say the least, but the restrictive plot didn't grate quite as much as that of Tatters of the King. I'm sure part of this is because I was playing the former and running the latter, but I also think it may have something to do with genre expectations. We were playing a game of pulp fantasy, so when we were looking for a lost temple and Stuart told us we were on an island with a volcano at its centre, of course the temple had to be there, but it didn't matter because that's how the genre works.

It was a fascinating contrast with the heavy-handed approach of Tatters of the King, and it's made me wonder if all those old Chaosium scenarios that led player-characters on a path from "letter from distant relative" to "going insane at the sight of some blobby thing" weren't as unimaginative as I once thought, since they were only playing up to genre expectations.

Following that, we decided to have a go at The One Ring: Adventures over the Edge of the Wild, the latest Middle Earth roleplaying game. Through a convoluted series of negotiations, I ended up running it despite not owning a copy of the game, and having no time at all to prepare I decided to run the included starting scenario. It went well enough and I think we got to grips with the game's mechanics, although the players managed to avoid combat on at least three occasions.

We liked the game enough to play again this past Friday, and this time I had to write my own adventure; I did manage to find a free scenario Cubicle7 had put put to promote the release of the game, but it's set at the opposite end of the game's campaign area, which is none too helpful. All was not lost though, as I discovered that underneath all the modern mechanics and elegant integrated game design is a game based around old-school hex-crawling, so I put into action some of the tips and tricks that I've picked up from a couple of years of reading a bunch of old-school D&D blogs and that I've never been able to put into action since I don't run old-school D&D games. I wouldn't say it was a proper open sandbox, but it was still quite a change from the more rigid plotting of our roleplaying games over the past few weeks, and it does look as if the system will support such an approach with ease.

I had a better grasp of the game's -- many, but simple -- subsystems the second time around, and we even managed to engage a little with the game's interesting combat system. Overall, I like The One Ring a lot, as it seems to blend elements from some of my favourite games; there are recognisable bits of Pendragon, Shadowrun, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and even Rogue Trader and 3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars in the mix, but it all fits together quite well. Perhaps my only criticism of it is that there's not much actual stuff in the game, and when you run out of interesting orc or spider encounters, there's no real guidance on how to make the setting your own. That said, the rules are so light and abstract that it's not too difficult to extrapolate from what's there.

Our own fellowship looks to be breaking up in a few weeks, but I think we may be adventuring in Middle Earth until then.

Musings on Ian & the use of pre-written materials.

Kelvin's neat little article on Ian Livingstone on his soapbox got me thinking this morning.... and being on my summer holidays, with a brief window of TIME, I put fingers to the keyboard and got typing!  Here are some follow up thoughts from a busy GM!

The question was - do prewritten adventures aide in the roleplaying experience or hold people back?

Me at work ;)

As someone who is normally up to their eyeballs in work/ doing stuff....... my general view has always been to laugh at the 'snobbery' of the 'purist'..... but I have never been a diceless rpg-man/ LARPer or desired to be on stage as an actor...... and whereas in the past I loved intricate plots, red/dead herrings and spending hours on a backstory etc (running Masks of Nyarlathotep every week for over 2 years).... that was WAY BACK THEN when I was obviously insane, had tons of energy.... now I am knackered most of the time and need a decent bit of killing in a session to stay conscious! But I digress.  ;)

Prewritten modules, if well chosen (afterall there are plenty of duffers out there - so I am careful), and appropriately adapted in advance (thank you paizo message boards for kingmaker!!), IMHO, can help a busy GM!!! Without using such things, I sometimes would have run nothing...for ages!  Pathfinder is a stat heavy game and thus it has been great to have that side of things handled in the Adventure Paths Paizo churn out.  Moreover their stories, NPCs, flavour etc in the APs are top-notch.

Eg: The Carrion Crown Adventure Path.


I have been slowly amassing resources to run this at some point in in the not too distant future. Each scenario has advice on music - which I have gone and bought various cds.... as well as the appropriate map tiles....minis.... The message boards, like for Kingmaker, are chock-full of advice on problems in enounter design, or on motivational issues etc...  I really liked the ideas of the path - and having read the whole thing and have a solid overview of where this thing is going helps you, as a ref, set up the game from the beginning with pc and party design... There is still tons of work to do to bring the games to life - to breathe life into npcs, to make sure there are options for pcs so they can achieve/ fail at things and there are consequences for that.... and in the case of Carrion Crown, to reflect on, with the players, the horror mechanics and sanity loss in the game and other 'touches'..... especially since Carrion Crown will be a big change from the current sandbox style of play we are liking in my current WFRP Marienburg game El Kel has flagged up on this blog, in his Tales of the Jolly Butchers.  ;)

But I am prepared to admit that pre-written adventures can get in the way of a good game.

I played in a brief game of a game that will not be mentioned by name or genre....but some of you may have fond memories! It quickly became apparent that the GM not only had no understanding of the rules system (only one player did since it was new), but that they had not read the massive 100 + page adventure!! The gang quickly got bored, started sand boxing  away from the attempts to show horn us into a fixed path, and eventually destroyed the 'set', ending the game. Classic!!  I don't to say any more since I don't want to bruise any egos :S

Having believed for ages that I didn't have the mental space to create my own stuff, with work being insane, I realise now that I have used published materials as a prop... And that I have let this prop at times ' wag the dog', do to speak.... In that by relying on them, I was limiting my roleplaying possibilities and experiences.

I have always been aware of this...but the complexity of some systems always put me off writing my own material....

Take Deadlands. Great ideas. First edition Deadlands was a nightmare system...manageable if you were a player - but an act of love and dedication to make work as a GM.... But I loved it still... But the scenarios were utter garbage!!! So we never managed to play more than a mini series of games before time to stat up and create stuff ran out!





Same for Fading Suns: I loved the setting, the writing, the art..... like Deadlands it is a fantastic game - BUT-  for me, their in-house Victory Point system sucked!! & thus was tricky to create material for


All of these games have encouraged me to run pre made stuff.......






HOWEVER....more recently running Pathfinder at 12th level.... Nightmare!!!! So much prep for the poorly designed encounters in Kingmaker (loved the idea of Kingmaker- it falls apart in books 3-5)...... plus...interestingly... we have been having this debate about how Pathfinders Kingmaker was not a real sandbox, my gang got talking about creating our own (which started and then stopped)...although we couldn't agree on a system....in the meantime, I got worn out by the poor design of the high level scenarios in pathfinder's Kingmaker (which were not designed with the powers of pcs of that level in mind!!), as well as the general intensity of rules at that level and stuff you have to know in your head (eg all the spells of witches, mages and clerics to level 7, & what all the short hand terms in the bestiaries mean!!)...involving tons of prep every week..... I thought s#d this....I need a rest!!

& somehow, by chance, I thought let's try my bonkers "GTA meets the Sopranos" game and set it in WFRP (since I love the game, as I realised the others did - and for some reason we hadn't played any together!!) and Marienburg it was....to play a proper sandbox, not Kingmaker's faux sandbox - thus there was to be no over-arching metaplot.... And, without any premade material, other than the Marienburg book from which I have used a rough map and some names.... It has been my own work needing minimal prep because the system is so much easier than pathfinder! Thus the stories and adventures of the Jolly Butchers was born! & born in a busy time for me... despite the madness of life, I found the energy and joy to create and run stuff for it.....


Admittedly I now need to do some more homework on the sandbox and flesh out the next possible npcs, locations of interest, and random tables and stat them. But I am loving it. But also, having said that, I look forward to running Carrion Crown in late 2011, if there are enough players in my gang, and if I can tear them away from the Mean Streets of Marienburg ;)  Especially since I intend to run a seperate sandbox in the same city, with new pcs as detectives.... possibly ones with 'the gift', as in spellcasters, rooting out deviltry, occult, and all things chaos to keep the streets and canals of Marienburg safe (or probably make them less safe after they have accidentally opened up a chaos gate and sucked the city through it!  ;)

Oh dear..... where did Marienburg go? Can I re-roll?

Two Jolly Butchers, a Necromancer and a Drunk

Englebert the cat burglar has been tasked with restoring his family's control over the Doodkanal district of Marienburg; with him he has brought two slabs of muscle, the Norse berserker Steiner Eriksen and the dwarf Hammerhead Harry, and the smuggler Gisbert Lufthansa. Together, they are the Jolly Butchers!

Accompanied by the witch hunter Kurtz and his manservant Percy, Englebert and Harry descended into the tunnels below the city, intent on catching the necromancer Heinz Gerber before he completed whatever task had led him into the damp, dark labyrinth. The Jolly Butchers had Gerber's journal, and a rough map of the tunnels, both of which gave them some confidence; the recognition of Percy's thousand-yard stare and the realisation that Kurtz was blind drunk did not.

Harry was rather in his element underground and his sense of direction helped make sense of the incomplete map, while Englebert's keen eyes kept the party safe from traps; Kurtz and Harry had blundered into a pit trap early on in the expedition, but after that, the burglar took the lead and steered them clear. Soon enough, and with a suspicious lack of interruption from the undead things they knew were lurking all around them, the party reached an open chamber lined with statues. Because this was WFRP and not D&D, the statues did not come to life and attack, and the party passed through to the bronze doors beyond. Intricate carvings -- some form of writing -- covered the doors but none in the party recognised it, although it was clear it was ancient.

Nudging the doors open, the part entered a large mausoleum, at the far end of which stood their quarry, the necromancer Gerber, engaged in some kind of ritual. As Gerber chanted and waved his hands in eldritch patterns over a stone sarcophagus, the party attempted to creep forward, only for the whole plan to be blown by Kurtz bellowing a challenge to the wizard.

It was at this point that the party was ambushed by skeletons. At first Englebert was the only one not frozen by fear, but the group made short work of the undead, only to be assaulted by a second wave almost as soon as they'd put down the first. Meanwhile Kurtz was screaming at the Jolly Butchers, ordering them to take the battle to the wizard; Harry was busy stomping about with reanimated corpses hanging off him, scratching at his armour with all the force and fury of  light drizzle, and Englebert wasn't about to go on a lone charge, so they ignored the witch hunter's ravings.

As it turned out, the fates -- or WFRP's treacherous magic system -- did the party's work for them, as Gerber's ritual backfired and he started to be thrown about by invisible sorcerous energies. Harry and Englebert smashed aside the last of the lesser undead, while Kurtz and Percy reloaded their pistols -- which up until now had been rather useless as anything other than loud and expensive clubs -- and all looked up as Gerber underwent a change, ripping, expanding and twisting into a new form. From the necromancer's desperate cries of anguish, the party guessed that the transformation was not voluntary.

Gerber had become a blasphemous, stinking thing, with multiple heads, sharp horns and a bloated belly, all surrounded by a cloud of buzzing, unnatural and mutated flies. Worst of all, his shape was still in flux and he was floating a few feet off the ground. As the thing bobbed at a leisurely pace through the air towards them, Englebert let off an arrow and retreated back to the tunnels, while Harry sidestepped into a better position and readied his warhammer. Kurtz had by this time reloaded, but Percy fumbled with his shot and powder and would not be ready in time for the creature's assault. It belched and spewed forth a stream of vile, maggot-strewn vomit at the dwarf and the burglar, but missed, the slick yellow filth hissing and bubbling as it slid down the stone wall of the tomb.

With a sound like a crack of thunder, Kurtz fired both of his pistols at the thing, spattering gore and ichor across the entire party -- an Ulric's Fury result caused twenty-two wounds on the second hit, more than making up for the ineffectual shooting earlier on-- but even this did not seem enough to slow the creature, until it started shimmering and flickering, before collapsing into a tiny point of light that disappeared with a pop as whatever sorcery tying it to this plane failed at last.

Kurtz and Percy set about purifying the tomb of Gerber's necromantic influence, and Englebert and Harry set about liberating it of any treasure, finding a bag of ancient gold in the sarcophagus, as well as what they took to be the bones of Bigby; Harry crushed these to bits, just in case. The two Jolly Butchers would have liked to have looted explored further, but ominous howls and scratchings from the tunnels behind them suggested that time was short, so they fled the tomb and returned to the surface.

Now satisfied that the barman Jorn was not also the necromancer Gerber, Kurtz released the Jolly Butchers' employee into their care, and offered to treat them all to a slap up meal; while it was clear that the man was deranged, Harry was not about to pass up a free meal and agreed on everyone's behalf. Soon after, Kurtz and Percy left Marienberg and the Jolly Butchers settled back to discuss their plans to expand their modest holdings, at which point they discovered that one of the old captains of the gang -- from before Englebert's appointment as leader -- had escaped from the prison on Rijker's Isle and was on his way to the Doodkanal.

Ten Jolly Butchers

Englebert the cat burglar has been tasked with restoring his family's control over the Doodkanal district of Marienburg; with him he has brought two slabs of muscle, the Norse berserker Steiner Eriksen and the dwarf Hammerhead Harry, and the smuggler Gisbert Lufthansa. Together, they are the Jolly Butchers!

The Jolly Butchers were without two of their number this time around, with Lufthansa still busy with his business at the docks, and the mighty Norseman Eriksen off wenching somewhere in town. This left Englebert and Harry to investigate the mansion they had taken from the Red Hand Gang; they found that the rooms at the back of the building -- abutting the supposedly haunted garden -- had been locked and boarded by the previous occupants, and considered asking a priest of Morr to come and investigate. They were interrupted by one of their network of street urchins, who told them that a riot had broken out at the prison on Rijker's Isle, involving some members of their gang; this news concerned Harry, as the Butchers imprisoned on the island were of the old order and were of higher rank than the current leadership, all of which could cause problems if they broke out and returned to the Doodkanal. The young guttersnipe also told them that Jorn, one of the doormen at the Moby Dick, had been arrested; since the bouncer wasn't involved in any direct criminal activity, both Harry and Englebert found his arrest to be unusual.

Jorn's arrest was deemed to be less of a headache to investigate than a full-blown prison riot, and they discovered that the doorman had been identified by a witch hunter named Kurtz as being the necromancer Heinz Gerber, and that he was to be given a trial in seven days, at which point he would be burned alive. This would not do, so the dwarf and the burglar went to the guard house in which Jorn was incarcerated in an attempt to get him freed. The guards proved unhelpful, and Kurtz more so, but Harry and Englebert nipped around the back and managed to talk to their employee through the window of his cell. Once they were happy that Jorn was not in fact a dangerous necromancer and that he was being treated well enough, the pair planned their next move.

They had a number of options: to discredit Kurtz, to break Jorn out, to present exonerating evidence at his trial, or to find the real Heinz Gerber. They considered the first two options to be very unlikely, and the latter two just implausible, and thus the choice was made. They set about assembling friends, colleagues and family members who could vouch for Jorn and also started researching Gerber. They discovered that he was indeed a notorious magician with an interest in peering beyond the veil of death, and his chief interest was in a necromancer who was reputed to have found the secret to eternal life. In a cross-setting tribute to Gary Gygax, this necromancer was named Bigby.

The Jolly Butchers decided to put the word out that they had found an artefact belonging to this Bigby and, sensing that there was something a bit off about it, were eager to sell it as soon as possible and for a low price. After a day or two, an urchin arrived on behalf of an "old man" to look at the artefact -- an ornate box stolen from the tomb in the first session -- and having done so, headed off to report his -- or her, urchins are dirty and difficult to identify with certainty -- findings; Englebert made excellent use of his stealth abilities to follow the child back to a house across from the very graveyard from which the box was stolen -- and which they'd been searching for the creature which had been bothering the rat catchers -- and right next door to Skinner's funeral parlour, one of the Jolly Butchers' front businesses.

Popping in to speak to Alf Skinner, they found him nervous and shifty and he explained that some bodies had gone missing. He seemed less bothered by the theft itself and more that the Butchers would be angry that he'd been filling the empty coffins with junk to cover the absence of the rightful contents; as it happened, neither of them cared. They told old Alf to lock and bar his storage room in the basement, and they went next door with four Jolly Butchers as backup.

The gang members were reluctant to enter the house, which was run down and exuded the sickly smell of decay, and so took up covering positions with their crossbows, leaving Harry to venture inside alone, with Englebert just behind. He was attacked by three stinking, flabby pale things with poisonous claws, but Harry proved resistant to their venom, and with the aid of supporting fire from Englebert's short bow, the dwarf smashed his opponents. They threw the bodies into the streets to be burned and sent a message to Kurtz to tell him that the necromancer was still quite active and that he should perhaps come down to the house to see for himself, but a reply came a while later suggesting that the creatures they'd killed were just remnants and that the danger had passed now that Gerber was in custody.

With a sigh, Harry and Englebert went back into the house to investigate, finding nothing of interest except steps leading down into an ominous cellar. Harry went first, to find a crude laboratory inhabited by some misshapen patchwork creature.

At first, even Harry's stout dwarven mettle wasn't enough and he was frozen in fear as the thing swung at him, but he was lucky to avoid injury and snapped out of his paralysis in time to fight back. It was a tough battle, with the creature able to absorb a great deal of damage and not even Harry's mighty hammer was enough to bring it down; two massive strikes to Harry's head put great dents in his helmet and left the dwarf unconscious on the cellar stairs.

The creature bawled "FOOD!" from a slack and ill-fitting jaw and Englebert ran for it; at the time it was unclear if he was just saving his own skin or if he was trying to distract the thing from eating Harry, but it did indeed follow the thief up the stairs. Englebert climbed the outside of the house and on to the roof, thinking the thing couldn't follow, but it proved more agile than it looked and thus ensued a rooftop chase that ended when Englebert's nimble footwork had him ducking out of the creature's overextended grasp, causing it to fall into the vat of a conveniently located tannery.

Harry rested and healed, while a search of Gerber's house went on -- with an eye to a possible future career as a physician, Harry pocketed the necromancer's surgical tools -- and the Jolly Butchers found a trapdoor leading into a warren of tunnels under the city. When he was fit to move, the dwarf ventured in and identified the passages as belonging to some old necropolis, perhaps forgotten by the people of the city. Their henchmen refused to go into the tunnels, but did continue the search of the house, turning up what seemed to be Heinz Gerber's journal. The mad ravings of the necromancer were difficult to decipher, but the Butchers did find a partial map of the tunnels below their feet, as well as a number of entries concerning Bigby's tomb, dated after Jorn was captured.

They took this clear evidence of Jorn's innocence to the witch hunter and the belligerent sod did not release the doorman, but declared that the matter was worth investigating, and so agreed to go with the Jolly Butchers as they pursued Gerber into the tunnels below the city.

Seven Jolly Butchers

Englebert the cat burglar has been tasked with restoring his family's control over the Doodkanal district of Marienburg; with him he has brought two slabs of muscle, the Norse berserker Steiner Eriksen and the dwarf Hammerhead Harry, and the smuggler Gisbert Lufthansa. Together, they are the Jolly Butchers!

This session was heavy on the old fisticuffs, and because of the unique way in which Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay handles combat, it was also quite heavy on the gore, even more so than usual.

Following the events of the previous session, the Jolly Butchers decided to stake out the headquarters of their rivals, the Red Hand Gang; setting up shop in a, um, shop across the street, the Butchers watched and waited. The mansion was fortified with a strong gate for the outer wall, and the windows on the ground floor had been converted into arrow slits, but there were only a handful of guards visible. After some time, a cart came out of the front gates, accompanied by four gang members, and the Jolly Butchers decided to see where they were going and if possible pick them off, so reducing the opposition within the mansion itself.

Harry and Steiner followed the cart, while Englebert went to send a message to the rest of the Jolly Butchers and have them meet the core group; Gisbert was still busy with some smuggling activities down on the docks. The Red Hand Gangers took the cart -- Harry noticed from the way it was moving that its cargo was heavy -- to a warehouse where they were met by two other ruffians, and together the six of them entered the building. Englebert had returned by this time, and sneaked up on to the roof of the warehouse to peek through a window; inside he saw the enemy loading crates on to a waiting barge at the back of the building, and so he returned to the rest of the Butchers.

Four other Jolly Butchers had arrived -- Kaspar, Waldred, Grimwold and Hamlyn -- and with only one way out for the gangers and their cart, an ambush was arranged. Englebert took up a sniping position on a nearby rooftop, while Harry and Steiner took two men each and hid on either side of the narrow alleyway leading off from the warehouse.

The Jolly Butchers launched their ambush, the Red Hand launched a counter-ambush, and the little street was soon awash with gore. Through strength of numbers and the uncanny bloodlust of Steiner's unusual elven blade -- pilfered from the tomb in the first session -- the Butchers prevailed with nary a scratch, and while most of the Red Hand Gangers were left dying in the muck, there were a couple of survivors. They told the Butchers that only three men, plus the halfling Steevil and his lieutenant Catspaw, remained in the mansion, but more were supposed to be on their way from out of town. Harry -- with an eye on the interrogator career -- also found out that the gang had a secret knock with which to identify themselves at the front gate, and a plan was formed.

The Butchers pulled up their hoods and took the cart and one of the survivors back to the mansion. With the rest of the gang hanging back, the survivor went up to the front gate to request entrance, while Harry -- tall for a dwarf but still just small enough to hide below the gate's viewing grille -- kept a tight grip on the survivor's, ahem, crown jewels.

The group was let in, Harry pushed the survivor to the ground and rushed into combat with the guard, with the rest of the Butchers following up. The guard managed to let out a few shouts but soon he too was dead; not soon enough though, as crossbow bolts started whistling through the air towards the Jolly Butchers. Harry rushed over to the arrow slits, while Englebert scaled the house itself, and Kaspar, Waldred, Grimwold and Hamlyn ran for the mansion's front entrance, which was in an alcove and would provide some cover from the crossbowmen.

Where was Steiner? Well, expecting a somewhat different welcome, the big Norseman was hanging off the bottom of the cart, ready to jump out and into combat, only now he found himself in cover but perhaps pinned. Nonetheless, he made a break for Harry's position, just as the dwarf chucked his favourite mining lantern in through the arrow slit; as planned a small fire started up, which only got larger as Steiner then lobbed a bottle of spirits in through the same slit. Spotting a stable door and a possible side entrance, the dwarf and the Norseman headed in that direction.

Meanwhile, Englebert was on the roof, removing tiles in an attempt to get into the space below, and Kaspar, Waldred, Grimwold and Hamlyn found the front door of the mansion locked and barred, and the alcove not as safe as they had thought, as the pernicious halfling Steevil had installed murder holes above them. Poor Kaspar was shot twice in the head -- "Now he's a ghost!" said the GM -- and the rest of the thugs ran back to the relative safety of the cart.

In the stables, Harry and Steiner did indeed find a back door, through which they heard frantic voices and "the sound of pumping", a description which provoked a long round of laughter at the table, although I can't think why as we're all sensible adults. Honest. The two meatheads took a round or two to smash down the door and into the mansion's kitchen, by which time the, um, pumpers had returned to put out the fire. Steiner went into a berserk charge, Harry tried to keep up, and the pair burst through into a large room; the two Red Hand Gangers inside then faced the difficult choice of putting out the fire or fighting the two slabs of muscle pounding towards them.

At this point, Steevil -- robbed of easy prey -- made his way downstairs, and buoyed up by his presence, the two thugs chose the latter option, which in hindsight would prove to be their last mistake. Upstairs, Englebert poked his head in through the gap in the roof and got a crossbow bolt in the face from Catspaw for his trouble; this knocked him off the roof and into a handy hay cart in the street below, where he lay unconscious for the rest of the fight.

Back inside, the fight got brutal, with even the big Norseman into critical condition, his arm numbed and his sword dropped... except the eerie elven blade would not allow itself to be dropped, so Steiner remained in the fight. The Red Hand Gang, with their fondness for crossbows and fighting from the shadows, were no match for Steiner and Harry, whose enthusiasm for toe-to-toe fighting came to the fore, and soon enough the Red Hand Gang ceased to exist as a going concern.

As a result of all of that messy business, the Jolly Butchers have taken up residence in the mansion, and have taken control of the Red Hand Gang's assets. Next up is the exploration of the mansion itself and of its gardens, which are reputed to be haunted. When that will happen I'm not sure, as Stuart has a busy calendar over the summer, and Manoj is expecting a baby very soon. It's been great fun playing a bit of WFRP though, and a pleasant change from the heaviness of Pathfiner; the big fight at the end was very smooth and quite quick, for example, even with about twelve combatants. Ben's trying to get me to run something in the same setting, and I have some ideas on that front, but I'm also really enjoying playing.

Eight Jolly Butchers

Englebert the cat burglar has been tasked with restoring his family's control over the Doodkanal district of Marienburg; with him he has brought two slabs of muscle, the Norse berserker Steiner Eriksen and the dwarf Hammerhead Harry, and the smuggler Gisbert Lufthansa. Together, they are the Jolly Butchers!

Last time, the Jolly Butchers were scouring the local graveyard for evidence of some kind of beast that had been bothering the local ratcatchers, and causing them to go on strike until it was dealt with. Although we'd done a bit of grave-robbing and earned some cash as a result, we were no closer to finding this mysterious creature, and so made the decision to put aside the ratcatchers' strike for now and focus on other issues.

We had only just arrived in town and our control over the Doodkanal was still almost non-existent, so there were a number of roaming thugs causing trouble in the area. Furthermore, a bigger and more organised gang -- the Red Hand Gang -- had taken over half of the district, although had not yet allied with the Marienburg thieves' guild, so could technically still be ousted without political repercussions.

We chose to go after the lesser thugs first, and soon ran into a group causing trouble at the fish market. As planned we roughed them up, a task which took much longer than it should due to Harry's inability to hit anything with his not-so-trusty hammer. Only one survivor remained -- covered in the blood and bone fragments of his fellows as a result of WFRP's lethal combat system -- and he was persuaded to join the Jolly Butchers, bringing the number of enforcers up to eight. Harry took the survivor off to get his gang tattoo, while Steiner and Englebert -- Lufthansa had been called to the docks on business matters -- set about displaying the corpses in public as a warning to other opportunistic ruffians.

Next up was the Red Hand Gang. They had taken up residence in an abandoned mansion in the eastern part of the Doodkanal, and were under new leadership, a halfling poisoner called Steevil. That part of the Doodkanal bordered on the Little Moot, a halfling district, so we got in touch with the halfling boss Rudolf Ingo Pickles, who was also the head of the bakers' guild of Marienburg.

We met Pickles in a lovely patisserie called The Crepe Hole where Harry enjoyed some spiced pork pasties -- Harry's human comrades declined to partake, which he put down to some kind of strange human religious practice -- and Englebert set about charming the diminutive crime boss. It seems he was none too fond of Steevil, would be quite happy for us to expel him from the Doodkanal and gave us a bit more information on the poisoner and his gang; there was some talk of owing favours at this point, but Harry was too busy munching away on a pasty to pick up the details, although he did hear something about a back way into the mansion.

The Jolly Butchers were too few and too disorganised to make a frontal assault on a dozen career criminals holed up in a fortified building, so we decided to pick off as much of the gang as we could while they were out and about on their business.

We took over an abandoned building in what the Red Hand optimistically called their turf, spruced it up a bit and opened it as a pawn shop. As expected, a group of Red Hand enforcers wandered by after a couple of days and took notice of the new shop; they entered and intimated to the shopkeeper -- Harry, in an unconvincing disguise -- that he should pay them some protection money. Harry said he didn't understand what they were getting at -- this may or may not have been a ruse -- which angered the thugs, and they grabbed him, which is when the rest of the Jolly Butchers sprang into action.

Englebert had rigged the door to spring shut behind the last of the Red Hand thugs, trapping them in the shop with an angry dwarf, a bored Norse warrior and a bloodthirsty cat burglar. Once again Harry missed with pretty much every strike of his mighty hammer -- despite a Weapon Skill of 51 and two attacks per round -- giving his foes a chance to whittle away at his stockpile of Wounds with little in the way of a retort. By the end of the fight, Harry was battered and bruised, but the Red Hand Gang members were all dead or unconscious, largely at the hands of Englebert and Steiner.

Once again, there was a lone survivor, Wolfgang:

"Tell us what you know about the Red Hand hideout!"

"I don't know anything!"

"Then you're no longer useful to us."

"I might know something!"

The Red Hand often met in a tavern not far from the mansion, called The Sea Hag, so we decided to press our advantage and attack them there before they could withdraw to their fortified headquarters. Harry was too injured to go straight into another fight however, and was forced to rest for a day or two, a delay which may yet prove disastrous for the Butchers.

We went to the tavern and attempted to pick up some gossip from the locals -- this is where Harry did shine in the session; despite not having the Gossip skill, and so defaulting to a modified Fellowship of just 11, he succeeded with each and every attempt he made -- but were unable to learn anything helpful, although they did make the acquaintance of a boat captain who went by the name of "The Captain". As Harry chatted to his new friend The -- being a dwarf, Harry either didn't understand or didn't care about the difference between a name and a title -- Steiner's sixth sense warned him that trouble of some sort was on the way.

The Butchers left the tavern, and detected they were being followed. Suspecting the Red Hand, Steiner and Englebert dropped back to set up an ambush, while Harry provided the bait; a short fight ensued between the Butchers and a pair of suspiciously skilful swordsmen -- we suspect that the GM was cheating a bit here, as he is wont to do on occasion -- which ended with Englebert once more turning on the charm and negotiating a truce. The two flashing blades wandered off into the night, and the Butchers made a quick retreat back to base to plan their next move against the Red Hand Gang.

Four Jolly Butchers

We played Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay last night, and it was everything I expected it to be. Stuart has a summary of events over at his blog, so I'll try not to go over too much old ground.

The setting was Marienburg, a prosperous but independent trading port that is a little bit Amsterdam, a little bit New Amsterdam, and a little bit Bristol. Apparently. Local crime boss Smiles Vanderveel had fallen ill with a mysterious malady, and with his withdrawal from the day-to-day running of his turf, his men had either deserted or been picked off by other gangs moving into the area to take advantage of his perceived weakness. As such, Vanderveel's boss, "Uncle" Smalls decided to send in some heavies to see if anything could be salvaged from the situation.

So on Angestag the ninth of Brauzeit, four unsavoury sorts got off a leaking boat at the rotting docks in the Doodkanaal district of Marienburg. I played Hammerhead Harry, a dwarven slab of muscle with a hammer, Stuart played Steiner Eriksen, a berserker from Norsca, and Stuart's son Sebastian played a boatman-turned-smuggler named Gisbert Lufthansa.

Now that last one is quite a silly name, but it's very much in keeping with the tone of WFRP, and is one of the things I love about the game; you could have the same tone in any fantasy game, but for some reason it just doesn't fit as well as it does in WFRP. I've seen people complain about how grim and depressing they find both Warhammer settings, and I wonder if they've missed the point.

Rounding out the party was Manoj's cat burglar Englebert, who was one of Smalls' "nephews" and as such was supposed to be in charge. Our gang headquarters was in the back room of a butcher's shop called, er, The Jolly Butcher, so after some initial missteps -- "You can call us... The Dicks!" -- we took our gang's name from the shop.

Our GM Ben had set the game up as a sandbox seeded with clues and rumours, so we were free to roam and restore the gang's fortunes in any way we saw fit. In our initial forays we discovered another group -- the Black Dogs -- selling narcotics in one of our pubs -- the Moby Dick, hence our first, failed, attempt at a gang name -- so we found their hideout, roughed them up -- which, due to WFRP's brutal combat system, ended with two of their men bleeding to death in a cellar -- and forced them to join the Jolly Butchers.

We also rounded up all the protection money that had gone uncollected during Smiles Vanderveel's absence, and gathered enough to hire a physician from one of the posher parts of town to come and attend to the boss. The doctor suggested that although Smiles seemed to be suffering from a tropical disease, it was more likely that he was under the effect of a magical curse, and that we could either find the original magician and kill them, or find another magician to dispel the enchantment. We decided to look for a necromancer who was reported to be causing trouble in the Boneyard, a nearby cemetery; it was possible that this necromancer had cast the original curse, and even if not, he might be able to undo it. Furthermore, the local rat catchers' union -- who were supposed to be under our thumb -- were on strike following the killing of two of their number by some sort of beast, also in the Boneyard, so we saw this as an efficient way to deal with a couple of problems at once.

We found neither beast nor necromancer, but did run into a couple of grave robbers who claimed to be working for a rival boss, Mad Eye Eddie; they were taking the body out of the Doodkanaal area and into Eddie's turf, but we decided we weren't tough enough to take on another boss just yet, although we did warn the robbers not to mess about in our backyard again and to tell Eddie that if he wanted to do business he could get in touch, and didn't need to be so sneaky about it.

Returning to the Boneyard, Englebert decided to do some grave robbing of his own, but was paralysed with fear when he ran into a bunch of animated skeletons. Harry remained stoic and waded in with his warhammer, until the rest of the group shook off their fear and finished off the undead. Steiner was quite annoyed with the burglar for taking the group on such a pointless and dangerous digression, but the discovery of a cache of gems changed his demeanour somewhat.

That's more or less it for the session. What perhaps doesn't come across above is how funny it all was, with fluffed rolls and comedy accents aplenty, and the decision to mark all our gang members with a tattoo of a smiling pig, even those who had "joined" the gang while unconscious. We had a couple of very tired players at the table, but even so everyone was enthused, and I haven't seen so much laughing in a game in a long time. It was a brilliant three-or-so hours, and I'm looking forward to more of the same next week.

Sandbox D&D gaming (with Pathfinder): some reflections

I have been running a Pathfinder ‘sandbox’ campaign for about a year now (I think – have lost track of time – I believe we started it late June 2010)….. and until last week I had been running it virtually every week…… Looking back on the game, I threw out some ideas to the guys on the email group we have for our gang…. Having gibbered on and off all day between three of us, I thought maybe our collective musings would be worth sticking on this here blog, if only as a warning to y’all about what not to do if running a sandbox. ;) Here is the transcript (with a few typos/ changes to make sure it makes sense!)

Me (BenTheFerg)
I think running the Kingmaker path has told me a lot about how to run - and not run - a D&D game.... Here are a few reflections.....for the next one we ever do (as in playing a sandbox game in which you clear out an area to create your own kingdom)....

1) You would have no backer/ patron. You'd be on your own, as your own mercenary band/ reclaiming your ancestral lands/ seeking your fortune in the 'wild west'

2) SLOW progression tracker - to make those low levels last a little longer... to keep up the sense of challenge

3) PC death. I wouldn't wish it, but I sure think it should happen. To keep the game with a level of realism, there would be need to be a supply of npcs who were affiliated to the pcs, eg a base camp of folks in your group (as in more npcs in your team - who remained at base camp whilst the pcs investigated. When a pc dies, you take an npc and they are seamlessly involved in the adventure. That's one solution anyway!)

4) a little more attention to rules on manufacturing of magic items...... I guess this would necessitate a discussion of Iron Heroes for the next such sandbox, or Pathfinder, but with class variants of spell casters which boosts them in other respects but tones down magic item creation.... (Kingmaker had massive time spans, allowing for the mage to create customised gear at half price – magic items lost their uniqueness, and the team are buffed to the hilt! Moreover, the rules on magic item creation are overly generous we now realise, and can be game breaking, like the permanent strongjaw gloves the monk uses)

5) more attention to smaller details, eg to your stronghold, npc guards, etc (for small skirmish warfare scenarios, assassination attempts, creating a feeling of threat and the need to counter that threat)

6) likewise more attention to various rival npc groups, local politics, local environments, hazards.........

7) level cap at 5th or at 10th? (when the pc has to retire and their kids take over?) or is that too arbitrary? :)

8) more small dungeons. More pot-holing and under-dark exploration. More difficult terrain situations, more environmentally hazardous battles. Diseases. Midges. Slavers. Traitors. Revenge. Mistrust.

9) disfigurement rules for massive blows/ physical traumas. A discussion on the limits of healing for damage from one blow above a certain value...... to make it more gritty. :) I think there are some in the GRR Martin d20 Game of Thrones rpg I still own. :) (and maybe in Black Company d20 rpg too.)

Just some thoughts……… I am thinking of running it as a homage to all things old school D&D (Keep on the Borderlands, etc etc)......

Kelvin (KelvinGreen), from now on called K:
The only problem with Kingmaker was that it had a very clear plot, and for all the hexmaps in the world, if you have a plot, it's not a proper sandbox.

Me:
Yes. This is something I would want to change – as in having rival groups all with their own agendas, who pursue their agendas, and try and find ways (through diplomacy, war, assassination etc) to get the pcs to do their dirty work (without you guessing of course – not that that would work!!)

Stuart (from the Great Game) – now called Stu.
Greg's old SLA Industries campaign was a bit like that. You could choose from a variety of missions (BPNs), but in addition, the team became increasingly embroiled with a number of competing factions, including Dark Knight and the Mob. At one point we even carried out a hit on another Slop (SLA Operative) for the Mob, believing we were on a legitimate mission!

We were constantly navigating the murky waters between what SLA wanted us to do, and what we could get away with in the interests of lining our own pockets and promoting the interests of our team.

But the key thing was there was not pre-scripted plot: after each session Greg would go away and decide what the various shadowy players would do in response to our own actions. We seemed to be constantly under investigation by internal affairs, always looking over our shoulders, characters took to sleeping with weapons under their pillows...all great stuff!

Thinking back, it WAS a sandbox campaign. Some missions were pushed at us, but we were not obliged to take them, and we had a number of sub plots (for instance the hunt for the serial killer Exsanguinator) running throughout the campaign.

K
Yes, it's one thing to have a plot develop through play, but what Paizo did was release something with all the trappings of a sandbox -- the hexmap, the wandering monsters, etc -- but then overlaid a standard adventure path plot on it, as I feared they would. There's nothing wrong with a plot, of course, but it's not a sandbox.

Stu
The question is, how does the sandbox evolve to keep pace with the increasing power of the PCs, particularly in Pathfinder, where the leap in power from 1st to 4th is pretty substantial. You want to avoid the "Oh yes, well, there is indeed a dragon in your basement, only he's been keeping very quiet up until now....because...er..."

Kingmaker does this by adding new territory to the campaign, with bigger challenges, like the more serious encounters to the south of the main map, and the undead cyclops empire on the second map. BUT, if the PCs by-pass something - like the derro lair - with the intention of returning to it later, the GM will need to do some buffing of the original encounter while keeping it credible.

(me: sadly every front cover had an image of what the Big Bad would be - as in the lich-cyclops opposite)

A sandbox dungeon is probably easier to manage in this respect, with some areas hidden, or only accessible once a boss is defeated, etc.

K
Well, the simple answer is that the players know from the start that the dragon is there, but they avoid it until later. If they leave it until they're much more powerful, then they'll probably squash it, but one could argue that this is just sensible -- if a bit dull -- play.

I don't know if we can make a proper judgement on the power levels of Pathfinder at this point. Our current characters are rather overpowered, as we know, but that may not be the case for the game as a whole. Similarly, Kingmaker was a pretty poor sandbox setup, so I don't think we've had enough useful sample data, as it were, to decide if a Pathfinder sandbox can work.

Me
Thing is, I want there to be various plots (npc goals which they try to achieve) and for pcs to find ways around these…. And Kingmaker has done a great job I think in trying to do these. I have enjoyed running the game, where you have a good idea of possible threats and have used your resources wisely to circumnavigate the threats. As a player, this is what I prefer as well. It is not much fun to be stumbling around in the dark for long. Yes – pc strategies may fail (may have poor intel) but pcs can have a go.

I think there is a balance to be struck between narrative (which gives plot dynamic, motives, time pressures, cinematic material, great locations) and sandbox…..

I let us down by not understanding the delicate nature of Pathfinder, and thus the point buy has skewed the game (FYI I allowed a dice pool mechanic at pc generation which led to pcs having, by pure chance, awesome attribute scores, which made them tougher, I’d say potentially – by 2 levels) – and add that to a lack of prudence on the magic item creation front (mentioned earlier the issue of allowing for unique one-shot items to be made, which really made the pcs buffed up nicely, esp when the kitted out their cohorts gained from the leadership feat) (all newbie Pathfinder DM errors) and it made the sandbox too easy and not threatening enough. I have learned from my errors (I hope).

Paizo in publishing the setting have managed to create a scaled level of threat to higher level pcs, with the expanding map, and with events happening to trigger the exploration of those areas….. given space constraints, this was the best way forward given the market demand for a certain kind of look to a module.

Having teleportation, pegasi, and a Roc have made the hex map irrelevant in so many respects. Higher level play makes sandbox in such a limited setting pointless. Wilderness exploration is fine for lower levels. At your levels it should be more pc driven – we want to explore X, travel to the plane of Y to speak to Z to find where B is. Etc Planar adventuring is well suited to high level sandbox play.

Hopefully we have all learned a lot more about how to make Pathfinder work – and whenever we finally run Carrion Crown (or something else), I think we will all be keen from the outset to avoid errors we made with Kingmaker. Kingmaker is not over yet though- you have the tournament, and shadowfell left. I will abandon most of the sandbox from here on it- the tournament will be the last sanboxy part – in that who knows what you will do!! - let’s enjoy the ride of the story I think and hit that cinematic ending.

For your homebrew sandbox, one wants to use the approach of Vornheim – but for Wilderness exploration – to generate settings/ ideas on the fly, to complement other stuff.

Other things Kingmaker could have done better:
- rivalry between npc adventurers and yours
- more persistent npc foes
- foes who become allies against a bigger bad…
- more locations in a smaller area.
- A more claustrophobic feel

Will work on a setting starting this half term. Don’t know what sandbox wilderness ideas appeal….
1. Mythic wood (sentient) – emphasising the fey
2. a northern wilderness adventure (giants, northmen, dragons, and other mythic Viking/ norse creatures), with viking boat exploration, castle building etc – or of adventurers carving out a kingdom in the wilds in the north…..(beyond the wall/ somesuch)
3. an Al Qadim style game, of jungles, deserts, island hopping…

The smaller the setting the easier the task – so for 2) the idea of playing a bunch of pcs questing into the wilderness from a fort on the edge of civilisation (ala Keep on the Borderlands), to tame it, take it, would be easiest. BUT this is similar in premise initially to Kingmaker…..

Stu
Old school sandbox was a simple explore and purge mission, particularly in the first 10 levels or so. After that, the class descriptions seemed to assume players would start using the conquered lands as the basis for their domain - e.g. building castles, temples and thieves' guilds. But AD&D tended to skip over much of this - it could tell you how much an iron grill over a window would cost you, but not how to work out the tax base for a rural hex with eight farms and a human population of 150.

Plus, how did you run a dwarf domain? An elf one? The D&D Companion rules did address some of this, and the launch of Battlesystem did provide scope for bringing miniatures gaming into AD&D.

But once PCs get past 10th level, the scope for a sandbox wilderness and/or dungeon adventure becomes somewhat reduced, particularly if people start taking the Leadership feat. Then they begin plotting the downfall of other kingdoms, empire building or possibly planar adventuring. Is it still D&D in the classic sense of the word?

Much of the daily work of running a domain can be outsourced to NPC allies, of course, and the PCs can still expose themselves to danger in the form of high level adventures to meet threats to their own realms - e.g. a barbarian invasion like the one we had in Kingmaker.

"A pox upon the business of kinging it! It drained every last drop of a man's tissues, leaving him a querulous old hairsplitter without enough red blood in his veins to swing a broadsword. Surely, after twenty weary years of wearing the crown, a man was entitled to throw over honours and titles and set out toward dim horizons for one last gore-splattered adventure before Time's all-felling, implacable scythe cut him down..."

CONAN OF THE ISLES, L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter, Sphere Books, 1974

K
Ah, the wisdom of King Conan!

Well that's another case of plot developing through play, which is absolutely in keeping with the sandbox ideal. The key is to have lots of this going on at once, so there's a meaningful player choice; where Kingmaker went wrong was in a lack of alternatives, so our choice was a binary one of choosing between following the plot or not following the plot, when it should have been between following Plot A, following Plot B, following Plot C, and so on.

The other issue it had was that its plots were more interesting than the alternative, so the campaign presented us with a barbarian invasion, but then said "or you can go and explore some hexes instead", and of course that's not really a choice at all.

As such, it became a scripted campaign with a hexmap, which is not the same thing as a sandbox.

Stu
Keep on the Borderlands was great for levels 1-3, and Isle of Dread for 4-6, but the key is what happens when you have a 12th level party....? I'm really enjoying higher level play to be honest. It's been fun taking characters from lowly 1st level novices and ramping them up into Schwarzenegger-like uber-heroes. The key is devising a sandbox that can challenge at 1st and at 12th, when people may indeed have flying mounts, the ability to teleport, etc. This is less an issue of points buy, and more what players are able to acquire through innovative thinking, class features, etc.

PCs will still be able to manufacture magic items; it may take them longer, but they'll still be able to come up with a magic carpet or find some way of winning the loyalty of a flying monster like a pegasus. Plus, you can't really ban spells like Invisibility, Haste, Fly, Enlarge, Summon Monster, Entangle, etc. all of which play a key role in our strategy.

I guess the solution may be a bigger sandbox, something the size of North Africa rather than East Anglia.

K
Well, as Ben suggested, you can also expand beyond the mortal realms into the other planes. You're still running around in a sandbox, but it's not about clearing forests any more.

Stu
That is definitely one way forward, because ultimately the planes can really be whatever the referee wants them to me. The PCs can do a bit of library research on them, but at the end of the day, it is another great unknown for the level 15+ character.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There you have it. I have really enjoyed Kingmaker. I would concur with K’s gripe: not enough positive options. Not enough dynamic forces jostling for the same area – with possibly different reasons to be there…… Moreover as a ref I found the Kingmaker Path badly designed in combat terms for the team. Yes the pcs were more powerful than most – but generally speaking the fights were not designed well – this meant I had to work very hard to try and make them more challenging. The fight with the trolls in the troll lair was the most challenging, and only because I gave them all 2x their hps, and had them all converge on the pcs after they were discovered in the troll lair – so they were taking on quite a few at once…. The barbarian was nearly downed during that combat.

‘Owlzilla’ (a giant owlbear) was another dangerous one (I gave her 4x the hps) – she managed to pick up the rogue and use him as a club. Fun. 4e (which I know the boys don’t like) has a better encounter design philosophy. In future I will stick more to the 4e design philosophy, and make sure I have a buffer and controller type, as well as brute and artillery for every major encounter. Without a spell caster, my critters were doomed from the outset! However, these gripes are of another nature –not sandbox issues in themselves – although the very nature of wilderness encounters means that one encounter in the wilderness will often not stretch the party’s resources like 4 encounters in a dungeon will – making designing wilderness encounters that bit more challenging.

TTFN

Ben

Musings & thinking ahead to the next campaign!

Setting search
I am wondering what setting I’d at some point like to run some non-generic fantasy in. As much as I am enjoying Kingmaker, it is a generic-quasi-Greyhawk setting (magical Europe)…. And in that respect it feels limited/ limiting… and even non-magical…. (no worries to those playing it - it is still a blast - I am just aware that I need to also slowly plan ahead - it is How I Am ;)
But what next (as in in 2+ years time)…. Various settings interest me:

• Shattered world concept – SW have a setting for it ‘sundered skies’ – but it is not quite what I am after (don’t like linear paths to start with)
  
  
• Swords and Sorcery concept – ala Conan/ Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, with low magic (Iron Heroes perhaps?)

Post-apocalyptic world – taking some of the ideas from Dark Sun – but in a different political setup.

• 
  
• Steampunk – early age – ala Defoe (the comic) meets New Crobuzon from Mieville’s work (but I am aware an rpg is apparently been made for this). Iron Kingdoms d20 has some classes and gear which could be nicked for this purpose.
  
  

1600s Europe – ala Solomon Kane (but not a replica of that) – Gothic – black powder weapons, clockwork, think Sleepy Hollow.

Party concept
I also have another conundrum –what kind of adventuring party concept? I like to set up a game, in liaison with the Team, as to what kind of party angle they would like a stab at, as well as what kind of game….. Having made the guys I game with play good pcs, and with Stuart chomping at the bit to play more of a ‘grey’ moral pc, (ala the anti-heroes of old, as well as Conan/ Fafhrd being heroes who were also pursuing self interest)… I am keen to have a party set up which captures those possibilities…..

Thus possible party structures:

1. Mercenaries - like Conan was for part of his career - in the sense they are members of a merc group, have a code of honour, are not evil, but neither are they good - but certainly would be united against the hordes of chaos etc. Could be any pc classes & pure sandbox - although they could seek out missions (for money), as well as developing their own ways of making hard cash - works in low magic S&S/gothic/planar settings OR
2. Thieves Guild - they could start off as lowly scum in the city's Thieves' Guild - and the first arc is them rising to mediocrity in the ranks: rogue, fighter, ranger, wizard/ sorcerer - play it out like GTA - with missions, as well as with sandbox - think the Sopranos meets Fafhrd & Grey Mouser here - works in an urban adventure setting - and events could see them having to leave it for a while.....(eg falling out with their bosses).... works in gothic/ S&S/ planar settings OR
3. Witch Hunters – they could be members of a religious order & hangers on: inquisitor, paladin, cleric/cavalier, wizard and rogue/ranger - again like GTA - a mix of sandbox and missions from your bosses. Think Van Helsing & Solomon Kane here - works in the gothic/ planar setting

Obviously some party concepts may work better in a certain campaign. Here's one example:


Witch-hunter setting/ campaign - fleshing it out a little
Reasons for joining the witch hunters: personal gain, joy in hunting, with one party member possibly playing the role of a believer in the cause, but also believing in using whatever tools (eg other pcs despite their greed), and methods they can (since they can rationalise anything in their warped ethical code)

Style of game....thus you have a party moving through the countryside, like in The Witchfinder General, hunting down trouble - for gain (honour, gold, power, women's favour, fear of locals, etc). It could also be part urban - Gothing up Ptolus for example - its backdrop of the Spire, and all the undead in the graveyards is a perfect backdrop for a Gothic witch hunter game for d20.

Development. Of course - as pcs progress, the game could explore how the pcs develop - or otherwise - a broader perspective - eg morality etc - but initially - for 5 levels or so – the game could encourage them to act it out as immoral basterds doing pursuing self interest in the name of their gawd.

Technology levels: I am thinking the backdrop would be airships, guns, etc - but these would add flavour initially - rather than being the centre of attention, eg the party could have either a pc or maybe better npc arcane mechanik in their mercenary band who helps upgrade gear - so long as the pcs get them the resources they need to do the work on their portable workshop inside their steam-wagon. Defoe is of interest here - with the zombie-apocalypse as the backdrop, and the famous scientists of the day pressing fast-forward on the tech levels as they try to create better guns and tech to beat the zombie hordes - applying ideas from Deadlands to 1669 England.

System: either
Pathfinder – with classes such as the new ones from the APG: inquisitor, alchemist, cavalier (?)… as well as old ones: paladin, cleric, rogue – with tech levels – I prefer those of 1600AD-ish for this .. OR

WFRP could be the other setting/ system for this game of course. 3e or 2e this is the question!!

Plenty of loose ends here - assuming I stick with this concept:

• what system? WFRP (2e/3e) or Pathfinder (I know there are others - but these will do for me)
• tech levels: Solomon Kane of 1600 - black powder only; or the more souped up stuff from Defoe, or even New Crobuzon, with trains..... Renaissance/ just pre-industrialisation/ industrialisation - all of these choices have profound consequences!!what world? Do I modify/ modernise an existing one - what would happen to it if.... (advantages - people may be familiar with it, eg WFRP - but in an industrial age, so some things would be strange), or start from stratch? (won't upset people, but involves more work!) This partly depends on 'what system'.
• What world? Do I want to modify/modernise a familiar world - what would it look like with these new technologies/ if a zombie-apocalypse happened etc or create a new one from scratch? Each has stengths and weaknesses.
• Is this the game I want to run? (ie I still need to explore the other ideas as well!

More musings another time. Time to bust a groove now and do some work!

Urban Arcana

I played a lot of Shadowrun in my teens, and most of our games were set in a futuristic Seattle, so I'm no stranger to urban role-playing games. I've never played in an urban setting in a fantasy game, though, and that's an itch I'd like to scratch one day, perhaps by visiting one of the following fine destinations:

Port Blacksand: Long before Freeport, there was the City of Thieves. After the ancient coastal city of Carsepolis was destroyed in the wars against Chaos, it was abandoned for decades, until pirates and thieves started taking refuge in the ruins, and things developed -- some might say worsened -- from there. The settlement passed through many hands over the centuries, until a bold pirate named Azzur sailed into port, conquered the city and installed himself as ruler. Now Blacksand is a chaotic place, with a single ruler but untold numbers of factions, great and small, vying for power. It is ostensibly a civilised human settlement, but ogres and trolls wander the streets wearing the uniform of the city watch. Lord Azzur himself is rarely seen, and may no longer even be in charge. A grizzled hermit lives in a shack under one of the city's bridges, a man claimed by some to be one of the world's most powerful mages, but if so, why is he there? And below the busy, grubby streets of Blacksand lie the ruined, haunted streets of Old Carsepolis, complete with forgotten temples to strange gods of the sea...

Honourable mention goes to that other great city of the Fighting Fantasy setting, Kharé. A Lankhmar-esque place that is easy to enter, but difficult to leave, Kharé may not be a city at all, but rather a prison in disguise.

Irilian: Published in White Dwarf #42 to #47 -- before it became a miniatures catalogue, etc, etc -- as an ambitious and elaborate attempt to map and detail a complete fantasy city, something they would later try again with Marienburg for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. What makes Irilian interesting is that it is no list of locations and NPCs, an approach which could quickly become dry and dull. Rather it is presented as a small campaign, with the players being introduced to various parts of the city as they progress through a series of linked adventures, so one scenario might occur in the merchant district, while the next would happen in and around the temple district, and so on. It's a fascinating and effective approach, the city as a sandbox, and one which makes it easier to absorb the sheer volume of information presented in thirty-ish pages of the Dwarf's then-characteristic 6pt text. My only criticism is the insistence on inventing a local language for the city that is the same as English, just with annoying alternative spellings -- "Commandere Aef Hors" for the city's cavalry leader -- that will have the GM reaching for the glossary every five minutes during the game.

Sigil: The ultimate port city, sitting as it does at the heart of the multiverse. The interesting thing about Planescape for me is not the dimension-hopping crossover aspect, as I tend to think that Spelljammer does this in a more evocative manner. Rather the point of interest is the central hub of Sigil itself, a place literally at the crossroads of everything. I see no reason to jump about the many planes of the D&D cosmology when there's such a rich, thriving and unpredictable setting right there in what could so easily be discarded as a mere base of operations. One gets the feeling that anything could happen in Blacksand, but in Sigil the safeties are off, and "anything could happen" takes on a whole new meaning in a city in which gangs of street thugs go to war with each other over matters of epistemology and metaphysics.

Those are my favourites. What about yours?

Kingmaker: DING!

Yesterday's Pathfinder game saw the party members getting to sixth level, after a rather cynical -- on our part -- bit of wandering about the map, fishing for experience points. A common criticism of Pathfinder's rival D&D4 is that its mechanics make it feel like a video game, but I think it's fair to say that our tactics last night were more than a little inspired by the grinding of many a computerised rpg. Which is not to say it wasn't fun!

Last week, the party investigated a series of ruined elven towers deep in the woods in the western part of our realm, but we ran out of time before we could tackle the large central tower. Picking up from where we left off, the party entered the building and discovered a rather obvious floor trap, which the changeling rogue Olban disarmed with ease, allowing the group to ascend the stairs to the upper level.

There things started to get strange, as the party entered what seemed to be a wooded glade under a sky lit by alien stars, and yet it was still a room within a tower, with windows looking out onto the courtyard in which the party had fought the quickling not a few minutes before. As if this was not disorienting enough, the room/clearing also contained a beautiful elven woman -- a baobhan sith -- who began a seductive dance as the party approached.

Alas for her, the only target she managed to entrance was the party's faithful warhound Cujo, and while the poor beast panted happily for her attention the rest of the team moved in for the kill. Sensing danger, the maiden unleashed an entangle spell, which was quite successful in slowing down the majority of the party, but only delayed the inevitable. A short scuffle later, and the strange thing was killed, fading away into nothingness as it died, and restoring the room to normal.

Having come out of the experience with fewer bumps and bruises than expected, the party decided to take the opportunity to explore the surrounding area, having been prevented from doing so beforehand by matters of state. Along the way a trio of grizzly bears were discovered, but the elven druid Cassie used her secret knowledge to calm the creatures, and the party managed to pass without a fight. Later, the heroes came across the lair of some kind of huge burrowing animal and were almost caught out as the occupants -- some kind of chthonic variant of the ankylosaurus -- returned home from an afternoon's foraging. These beasts managed to split the party but were unable to take advantage of the situation, and were brought down, albeit not with ease. Despite having rested, the ongoing fighting and exploration was taking its toll on the party.

The group decided to make one last push before heading back home, and ran into a pair of shambling plant things, each a mass of mud, vegetable matter and animated roots. The tengu monk Wu Ya found his effectiveness diminished as the extra little kick -- no pun intended -- gained from his amulet of shocking fists seemed to heal the creatures so he was forced to resort to basic attacks.

(Stuart has commented on Wu Ya's increased damage output of late, but I think it's easy to forget how much of it comes from enhancements. The amulet gives the monk an extra 1d6 damage per hit, but stripped of that, he was only doing 1d8+3 with each attack, and the plant-things weren't vulnerable to his stunning fist ability either.

On a more positive note, this week Stuart's character Artemisia dragged herself out of her low damage slump of the past few sessions. It's a recurring joke that Stuart does better when someone else rolls his dice for him -- his son exemplifies this best, rolling strings of 20's while Stuart himself barely rolls above a 4 when he picks up the dice -- and it proved to be the case this session, as he was absent this week, but his character was more potent in combat than she has been when he's been driving.)

Perhaps sensing weakness, one of the plant creatures grabbed the monk and began crushing him to death -- 42 hit points to 12 in one round! -- but all the while Artemisia the barbarian was hacking away with her greatsword and Olban was darting back and forth, stabbing away with his twin rapiers, and the creature did not live long enough to crush poor Wu Ya. As it was, the barbarian's warhorse dealt the final blow, crushing the thing to so much mulch beneath its mighty hooves. Battered and bleeding, the party decided to head home, but each of them felt stronger and wiser from the experience.

Level six! There was a bit of grumbling about this at the table, to the effect that sixth level holds little of interest for the other classes. The monk, however, seems to have something funky going on at each level -- Rick observed that the reason that Pathfinder monks don't get easy access to the game's prestige classes may be because the monk is already a prestige class -- so I have no complaints. It's a long haul to the next level though, as we've got to earn around 12,000xp. Each!