Savage Eberron: Dragonmarks (Part 1)

Ever since I got it in my head to run the Eberron setting using Savage Worlds I knew I had to one day try to fit dragonmarks into the game. It was fortunate that none of the players requested a dragonmarked character, which has allowed me some extra time to come up with the following rules. These are the general guidelines for using dragonmarks in Savage Eberron; specific rules for the individual marks will appear later.

Dragonmarks are purchased as Edges, per the usual Savage Worlds rules, and there are four varieties: Least, Lesser, Greater and Aberrant. A character selecting an aberrant mark cannot ever choose another type of mark, nor can a bearer of a standard mark ever pick the aberrant mark.

Similarly, those with a standard mark chooses from one of the twelve dragonmark families and can never change or choose a second mark at a later date. While dragonmarks work like Arcane Backgrounds in some ways, there is no such thing as the Arcane Background: Dragonmark Edge, and the bearer of a mark may also choose an Arcane Background as normal.

Each of the standard marks provides a bonus to a Trait roll, as well as a magical ability which can usually be used at least once a day; aberrant marks lack the Trait bonus, but do bestow a magical ability. In both cases, this ability costs no power points, uses no components and operates as if the minimum number of power points had been spent; for example, the Mark of Handling bestows the Beast Friend ability as if 3 power points had been expended. Dragonmark abilities use their own skill and have no linked attribute, just like superpowers; this skill starts at 1d4 and can only be increased by upgrading the dragonmark itself.

Bearers of the standard dragonmarks are almost always members of one of the great dragonmarked houses, but receive no special treatment unless they also have Edges like Noble or Connections. On the other hand, it is possible to have Connections within a dragonmarked house without yourself manifesting a mark.

LEAST DRAGONMARK
Requirements: Novice; Human, dwarf, elf, gnome, half-elf, halfling, half-orc.
Choose one of the twelve available dragonmarks; you gain the bonus associated with the mark, and may also use the mark's spell-like ability once per day.

LESSER DRAGONMARK
Requirements: Least Dragonmark; Seasoned.
Your mark is more powerful than normal. You may choose one of the following effects:

• You may use your dragonmark ability once more per day.
• You may increase your dragonmark skill by one die type, up to d12.
• Your ability is enhanced; increase the duration or effect as if one extra power point were spent.

GREATER DRAGONMARK
Requirements: Lesser Dragonmark; Veteran.
Your mark is among the most powerful known. The effects of this Edge are identical to, and stack with, those of the Lesser Dragonmark Edge, above.

ABERRANT DRAGONMARK
Requirements: Novice; Human, dwarf, elf, gnome, half-elf, halfling, half-orc.
Your mark is strange and unusual and resembles none of the standard twelve dragonmarks. Your mark mimics one of the following powers (roll 1d6):

1. Armour (Savage Worlds Explorer's Edition)
2. Detect/Conceal Secret Doors (SWEX; as Detect/Conceal Arcana, bar the obvious difference)
3. Elemental Manipulation (SWEX)
4. Fear (SWEX)
5. Light (SWEX)
6. Wall Walker (Fantasy Companion Explorer's Edition)

It's not all good though; here's a Hindrance to go with the Edges:

DRAGONMARK OUTCAST (MINOR)
For some reason, your connections with your dragonmarked house have been severed. You may have been thrown out for some indiscretion, or perhaps they are simply not aware of your existence. You cannot call in any favours from the family, but other houses will still see you at best as a rival and at worst as a spy, so you cannot go to them either. When interacting with the dragonmarked houses, you operate as if you have the Outsider Hindrance.

Brain Eater

My primary artistic influence has always been comics. I devoured them as a child, reading them cover to cover then grabbing a pencil or pen and drawing my own stories on any bit of paper I could find. It's fair to say, however, that I was also influenced and inspired, in no small part, by the imagery of fantasy gaming. Now, since I was a bit of a solitary sort, this meant that I spent a lot of time reading issues of White Dwarf with no real understanding of what the articles were about, as I wasn't playing the games. For kids like me, there was also Fighting Fantasy, which allowed us to pretend we were playing Dungeons & Dragons, even if we had no mates. The books also had some great art -- and let's be honest, the art was often much better than the story/game in the text -- and because the British game industry was a bit isolated and incestuous back then, you'd see the same artists popping up in different publications from different companies. As a result, British gaming products of the time developed a unique look, quite distinct from the visual style of the American gaming culture.

So while the Americans would be getting this:

We'd be getting this:

No contest.

One of my favourite artists from that time was Russ Nicholson, whose work combined an eye for fine detail with a talent for making the fantasy seem eldritch and strange. His style wasn't all that similar to that of John Blanche or Ian Miller, but they all shared a proper evocation of the weird that you just didn't see in American fantasy art.

I was pleased to discover that Nicholson was not only still working, but had started a blog, and when he ran a competition to win a piece of original art, I jumped at the chance.

I won:

I've never been one for chasing original art, and I'm not sure why, as it's great to have a piece by one of my favourite artists. Thanks Russ!

The Ministry of Blades : The Madness of Angels, episode 4

April spies a spirit; Dr Pleasant meets an eccentric.

Played

27^th January 2011.

Dramatis Personae

Lady Antonia deVore - a Heavily-armed Aristocrat.
Captain Benson Curruthers - a Military Policeman.
Doctor Zephaniah Pleasant - a Sinister Surgeon.
Miss April Sharpe - a Self-taught Inventor.
Jack Prentiss - a Dodgy Pedestrian.
Mr Erasmus Rooke - the Boss.
Sir Colin Mortimer - an Eccentric Architect.
Henderson - a Dedicated Cryptologist.
Lord Abergavenny - an Irritable Noble.
William Body - a Timid Workman.
Charlie Body - another Timid Workman.
The Chief Verger of St Paul's Cathedral.
The Distraught Vicar of St Ninian's Church.
Several Members of Staff at the Capitoline Club.
Lewis - an Unsuccessful Burglar.
The Corpse of Martin Geffey.
A Young Constable.
Two Athletic Bobbies.

Plot

Following the examination of Martin Geffey’s body, the heroes reassembled at the Ministry. It was late, but before turning in for the night, Curruthers wrote out his report of the day’s events, while Lady Antonia and Dr Pleasant both made attempts to decipher some of the Dean’s books.

The following morning, Curruthers led the charge to the breakfast table where news was spreading of the sudden collapses of St Ninian’s and St Colstan’s churches in North and South East London, respectively. Rumours were also circulating of paranormal events at the Cathedral. Accordingly, they decided to pay a visit to St Paul’s, pausing to deliver Greenfield’s enciphered diary to Mr Henderson, a somewhat unusual, but very talented, individual.

Arriving, they found the building empty, with staff, worshippers and onlookers surrounding it in a big circle. They were hailed by the Chief Verger, who explained about strange figures in the aisles, mysterious shrieks and whispering in the galleries and odd lights under the dome. They decided to enter and, despite their efforts to avoid notice, were cheered on by the crowds.

As they entered, they became aware that the building was much darker than it should have been. It was also cold and, as they left the porch, the main door shut with a loud bang. Prentiss and Miss Sharpe were somewhat shaken by this, but decided to press on. They were greeted by odd noises, but were unable to trace the source and, advancing to the space under the dome, they caught a glimpse of a faint figure just beyond the range of their torchlight. Miss Sharpe turned on her Detecteronatron and saw a demonic face screaming in the smoke, bearing a similarity to the face she had seen the morning before in the roof. They became aware of a shaking in the floor and dust began to fall from the arches. A brief attempt to investigate the upper levels was thwarted by the sudden appearance of a huge crack across the floor and they decided discretion was the greater part of valour, resisting the urge to flee outright as a sudden cackling emanated from the air around them.

As they emerged from the South Door, they were hailed by the Chief Verger, who immediately introduced them to the Bodys. The workmen had finally emerged from hiding and were desperate to relate their tale of uncovering a stone block bearing a carving of a Green Man. Not long afterwards, a number of odd events had occurred, culminating in the appearance of a ghostly figure in the cavity within the wall. They had fled, although Geffey had attempted to face down the entity before chasing after them. They had seen him collapse in the alley behind them and had assumed he’d been attacked and killed, hence their hiding.

Returning to the Ministry, Curruthers sought out Mr Rooke, asking him about the Capitoline Club. Rooke expanded a little on the establishment, explaining its status as a gentleman’s club, and told him that his Ministry status wouldn’t get him in. Curruthers and Prentiss decided to try anyway and, after briefly calling in on Henderson and getting the impression he did not want to be disturbed, they headed for Kensington. They were invited into the lobby and were shown to a side room, where they were met by the President of the Club, a curmudgeonly noble known as Lord Abergavenny. He flatly refused to help them, so they left, circling around to the rear of the building, where they debated forcing an entry.

The other three heroes opted for library research. After a brief and unsuccessful investigation of possible rituals that might prevent the collapse of St Paul’s, Pleasant joined Miss Sharpe in examining the history of Green Man carvings. They discovered that they were common in medieval churches and were apparently placed by professional masons. Theories connected them to a pagan underground and they may have had some ritual purpose: either protecting the building from vengeful local spirits or possibly binding the church with the power of those same spirits. Interestingly, they discovered that Christopher Wren flatly refused to include such carvings in any of his buildings, regarding them as pagan abominations (a not uncommon opinion in the aftermath of the Commonwealth). Lady Antonia investigated Wren’s career and the building of the cathedral, unearthing his connections to Isaac Newton and to a more mystical intellectual tradition.

Miss Sharpe and Pleasant then visited the site of the collapse of St Ninian’s, one of Wren’s other London churches. Talking to the vicar, they found out that the building had no history of instability, but were then approached by a somewhat crazed individual who informed them that Wren had been up to no good, using “occult practices” to shore up impractical designs. Despite his introducing himself as Sir Colin Mortimer of the Imperial Institute of Architects, Pleasant dismissed him as “odd”.

Notes

This game was a lot of fun from my point of view, despite the lack of actual action. For some reason, I was finally able to over-emphasise the peculiarities of some of the NPC’s (Mortimer and Henderson especially), which seemed to go down well. I intend to try this more often, it’s frequently offered as a way to make sessions more memorable.

On the downside I didn’t get as far through the investigation as I would have liked. This led to some compromises in the effort to finish the story the next week.

Sun, Sea and Cyberware

Well, I wasn't intending for this to be Shadowrun Week at the blog, but what the heck.

When Tim went off to university and took his Shadowrun campaign off with him, I attempted to fill the gap. We played a few generic, disjointed sessions, but in the end we moved on to different games, and my custom setting never saw the light of day. The notes are long lost now, but I can put together the basic elements from memory.

Since I was barely out of my teens, all vim and swaggering arrogance, I decided I wanted to subvert the usual gloomy trappings of the cyberpunk genre, and as such swapped the dirty alleyways and torrential rain of the urban sprawl for the sub-tropical splendour of Bermuda.

Perhaps taking the infamous Triangle as inspiration -- which strikes me today as being quite clever, although I'm not sure I intended the metaphor back then -- I set up a three-way power struggle. Before the Awakening, the Bermuda Triangle was known as one of the world's hotspots of the weird, but with the return of magic to the world in 2011 (!), the weird became manifest. Storms of unnatural strength and size battered the islands and cut them off from the outside world, while strange things fell from the clouds and crawled from the sea.

Prior to 2011 (!) Bermuda was an important offshore financial centre for many corporations, a result of its favourable taxation system. As such they were quite keen to get back in touch with their offices there, and when the eldritch storms finally subsided, the mega-corporations raced each other -- and the British government, as Bermuda was still a British territory -- to the islands, only to find them wild and lawless, and ruled -- if that is the right word -- by a cadre of newly-empowered and quite militant shark shamans.

Today, Bermuda is officially under British rule once more, although stable government is confined to a few key locations, most notably the northern islands of St George's and St David's, with much of the rest of the land a wild zone full of wandering Awakened creatures and independent settlements. The capital -- and all that valuable financial data -- is in the hands of the shark shamans, and negotiations continue between the shamans -- who demand an independent magical state like those seen elsewhere in the Awakened world -- and the British, with the mega-corporations waiting on the sidelines, their impatience growing by the day.

There you have it, as best as I remember, anyway. There's potential for the traditional Shadowrun political and corporate intrigue, with a number of factions jockeying for position, but with all sorts of weird stuff slithering in from the Bermuda Triangle, there's also a chance for a good old-fashioned monster hunt. There's even room for some D&D-eque ruin exploration, as those abandoned corporate facilities are bound to be full of the kind of stuff that would command a high price on the shadow markets.

And of course, there's always room for speedboat chases.

Maybe That Dragonlance Movie Wasn't So Bad After All

After watching this, why wouldn't you want to play Shadowrun?



If only so that you could do it better.

Thanks to sirlarkins for the link!

Running From the Past

I blame the internet.

Stuart started it in his review of Interface Zero; a casual mention of Shadowrun got me thinking about the game again, but it wasn't until JB started a series of posts on the game that I caught the bug and dug out my copy of the second edition.

Shadowrun was my first proper role-playing game. I'd played a bit of the multiplayer Fighting Fantasy, and I was aware of the hobby, but I was more interested in Games Workshop wargames at the time. My main gaming buddy at the time introduced me to Tim, who showed us this box of miniatures he had; they were fantasy types, orcs, dwarves and the like, but they had sunglasses and machine guns. Tim told us that they were from a game called Shadowrun, and invited us to play. From that point, we played Shadowrun for about three years, although oddly enough, I don't think we ever used the miniatures.

Through Shadowrun and Tim, I discovered more games, including my first -- and until a couple of years ago, only -- encounter with D&D, and a disastrous dalliance with Traveller: The New Era. Somewhere in there, I fell in love with Call of Cthulhu, but Shadowrun was always a constant, and it was only really Tim's departure for university that ended our time with the game. I played a bit of the third edition when it came to be my turn to enter higher education, but it didn't click with me and I left it behind. Up until a couple of days ago, that was the last time I looked at a Shadowrun book.

Looking at it now, I'm surprised at how much of the system we didn't use. It's what would be called "crunchy" nowadays, in that it does not attempt to have a rule for everything, but goes into great -- and likely unnecessary -- detail on the situations it does cover. Given my tastes of late I'm almost certain that if I ran it today, I would not make use of this detail, but that's not to say that I wouldn't run it at all, as there's still a lot to like.

The central mechanic is elegant and quick, one result of which is an unobtrusive close combat system which does its job without fuss. The drain mechanic -- the downside to spellcasting, in which casters risk taking damage from their own powers -- is a great idea, and is perhaps my favourite part of the entire system. The second edition also contains almost -- there's no adventure included, which is a shame -- everything you need to play, and all in a book about the same size as a D&D player's handbook; now Shadowrun was also the first time I encountered power creep, and Tim had a stack of supplements about a metre high, each of which gave one type of character an edge over the others, but none of them were necessary, and the game runs just as well from the core rules alone.

Except for decking. The computer hacking system in the second edition rules is a mess and while it was improved by subsequent sourcebooks, it never quite worked, and I can see why so many GMs just dumped the entire aspect of the game. It's a shame, as it's one of the key topoi of the cyberpunk genre, but the game is perhaps better off without it.

One other criticism of the game, in particular the older editions, is that it's dated, and it is true that there's a definite 1980's feel to the setting, but to me that is part of the charm.



It's more a product of its time than an accurate prediction of the future, but that doesn't make it of any less value as a setting, just as the outdated notions of the 1930's and 50's don't make a rockets-and-rayguns setting any less fun today. Any game which lets you play a grenade-launcher-wielding elven rock star or a motorcycle-riding ork wizard is just fine by me.

The Ministry of Blades : The Madness of Angels, episode 3

Dr Pleasant shows his power; Prentiss is nearly brought down by a garden implement.

Played

13^th January 2011.

Dramatis Personae

Lady Antonia deVore - a Heavily-armed Aristocrat *.
Captain Benson Curruthers - a Military Policeman.
Doctor Zephaniah Pleasant - a Sinister Surgeon.
Miss April Sharpe - a Self-taught Inventor.
Jack Prentiss - a Dodgy Pedestrian.
Rodney Marsh - a Partially-reformed Thief *.
Lewis - an Unsuccessful Burglar.
The Corpse of Martin Geffey.
A Young Constable.
Two Athletic Bobbies.

Plot

Prentiss was running as soon as his feet hit the path, chasing after the burglar he had seen dropping past the study window. Unfortunately, it was dark in the yard and an unseen rake nearly knocked him out. The thief took the opportunity to try and climb over the back wall, but his initial leap fell short, squandering his advantage.

Curruthers, having ascertained that the thief was being chased, headed for the front door, intending to cut the villain off at the end of the alley. Dr Pleasant and Miss Sharpe followed, leaving Lady Antonia to keep an eye on the study. That they might not pick the right end of the alley did not occur to them.

Hitting the ground on the far side of the wall, Prentiss doggedly renewed his pursuit, catching the burglar in a bear hug after he skidded in a puddle. Curruthers and his team appeared at the nearest end of the alley, having made the right decision, just as the thief broke loose, sprinting in the other direction. Pleasant reacted immediately, calling on Malphas, the Tower Builder, to intervene: a burst of blue light and an accompanying thunderclap nearly stunned the villain, but he shook it off and ran on. Curruthers calmly put a bullet in his shoulder, slowing him down enough for Prentiss to catch him again.

The team assembled and examined their captive: a shabby looking little man with oddly rodent-like features. They found themselves reminded of Marsh, although this was definitely not him. Attempting to get some information out of him, Curruthers attempted to persuade them that things would go better if he talked. All the while, Prentiss loomed over them in an intimidating manner, although this was compromised somewhat as Dr Pleasant attended to his developing black eye, muttering about tasks that were “beneath him”. Eventually, offered a deal, the criminal, Lewis, admitted to being hired by a mysterious figure. He had broken into the house to steal several specific objects and had been permitted to take anything else he wanted in order to muddy the picture.

He produced a bag from under his coat and revealed a number of odd objects: two sets of elaborate black robes, an elaborate chain of office (although not for any recognisable organisation), a private journal. He also had jewellery and other items of value. He was supposed to locate a small silver key, but had been unable to find it.

Extracting the location of the pub where Lewis had met his patron and where he was due to hand over the loot, the team headed back towards the West End. As they passed the Cathedral, they were accosted by a constable, who informed them that they’d found the body of Martin Geffey. Pleasant and April went with him while the others took Lewis on to the Ministry. The body lay in an alley near St Paul’s, at the end of an increasingly wild set of tracks, as though he had stumbled the final steps. Like the good Dean, it bore an expression of terror. Pleasant rapidly came to the conclusion he had died of a seizure, probably brought on by fear. Miss Sharpe used her Detecteronatron, to hunt for spirits, but was unsuccessful.

As the pair returned to the Ministry, they caught a glimpse of Marsh. As they attempted to hail him, they heard whistles and the pounding of heavy boots. Looking wildly around him, Marsh fled into the fog!

Notes

This was the first time I had attempted to use the chase system, widely touted as one of Savage Worlds’ more useful features. It was a little confusing at first, as the whole thing is written in terms of car chases, even though it was explicitly for foot chases as well. I found myself having to decide exactly what “Seriously Out of Control” meant for a pedestrian (stumbling) and exactly how climbing a wall might affect proceedings. I’m still not sure the system reflected Prentiss’ superior pace well enough or the effect of attacking while running, but it’s another system that will benefit from practice. Next time, there will definitely be more obstacles!

Had Marsh been present, he would have recognised Lewis as a former associate and probably have gotten more information out of him. As it was, it was largely irrelevant.

(* - player not present.)

The Ministry of Blades : A Frosty Reception at the Ministry (an Untold Tale of the Ministry)

April blows up a door; Antonia kills a chair

Played

16^th December 2010.

Dramatis Personae

Lady Antonia deVore - a Heavily-armed Aristocrat.
Captain Benson Curruthers - a Military Policeman.
Miss April Sharpe - a Self-taught Inventor.
Jack Prentiss - a Dodgy Pedestrian.
A Bad-tempered Norwegian Sprite.
Assorted Notables and Minions of the Ministry.

Plot

It had been a warm, wet winter and it was particularly foggy as the team returned to the Ministry on Christmas Eve. Delayed by the wrap-up for a persistent case, they were anxious to get back into the warmth, where the annual Christmas Dinner was being held. They were somewhat bemused to discover the building dark and locked-up.

Trying the front door, they became aware that it was much colder than the outside air. It was locked. The windows were dark and, on close examination, seemed to be frosted on the inside. Finding the main gates to the yard locked as well, the team ventured to the alley behind the building with the intention of climbing over the wall. The yard itself seemed fine, if quiet, and the horses in the stables were wrapped up warm against the cold. Checking the carriages and other equipment, they uncovered some warm clothing and blankets and, assuming the cold extended throughout the building, undertook appropriate preparations.

The back door was locked, but Prentiss had little difficulty forcing it open, letting the group into the kitchen. The room had been abandoned, although half-prepared food lay on the tables. The oven was cold and there was no sign of the staff. Everything was covered in frost. Choosing a door at random (this not being an area any of them were familiar with), they ventured into the central lobby of the building. Everything was covered in a thin layer of ice and the carpet crunched underfoot. The gas lights were turned on, but no gas issued from the tubes and they were cold and dark.

Curruthers took the lead as they headed for the main staircase to the first floor and was the first to be attacked by the zombies. Prentiss, at the rear, found more and battle broke out. The walking dead were frozen solid and difficult to damage, but tended to shatter when a solid hit was made. Making short work of the corpses, one of which was recognizable as the werewolf they killed in Highgate Cemetery, they reached the balcony. The ice was thicker here, coating the doors, walls and other woodwork. It was several inches thick on the doors to the Library and Council Chambers, which is where the dinner was to be held.

Deciding they needed heavier tools, they headed for the basement stores, getting distracted momentarily by the possibility of getting gunpowder from the armoury. Unfortunately, the doors were too well secured, so they fell back on the original plan of making use of picks and hammers.

Returning to the Library door, they set to work. Prentiss smashed a lot of ice off the door, fatiguing himself, but allowing them entry. The ice inside was thicker towards the door of the Council Chamber, but nothing could be heard. They spent some time examining the room for signs of summoning or of other dodgy books, but it seemed Madame Delgal had been tidying with her usual efficiency.

They began taking turns hacking at the Chamber door. After a couple of attempts, a head formed from the ice and, after giving them all a disdainful look, told them to stop making so much noise and go away. Further attempts to remove the ice resulted in the arrival of a four-foot tall figure of ice, which they smashed. This was followed by a series of lethal eruptions of ice shards. Dodging the bursts, they managed to remove a panel of the door and Prentiss packed it with black powder from his blunderbuss. Miss Sharpe then ignited the powder with a blast from her gun, blowing the door off its hinges.

Inside, they found the rest of the staff frozen at the table and covered in thick ice. While they stared at the scene, Miss Sharpe used her detecteronatron to locate a spirit sitting in a frozen chair watching them. She pointed it out to the others and large chunks of ice began to fall from the ceiling, narrowly missing several of the heroes, as Lady Antonia unloaded her LeMats at the chair. While the chair was completely demolished, the spirit appeared to be completely unaffected; worse, it was audibly cackling at them!

While various weapons discharged around him, Curruthers looked for the thickest concentration of ice, spotting it on the specially-imported Norwegian Spruce. Assuming a connection, he led the others in launching a hail of fire at it, eventually resulting in its destruction. The spirit promptly dissipated and the ice began to sublimate into the air.

Sensing an opportunity, the heroes started to decorate the frozen staff in a comical fashion, intending to blame the spirit when they woke up…

Notes

As a mostly-improvised session (I had a basic idea of the plot, plus a rough idea of the layout of the building), this worked very well. I hadn’t planned how they would defeat the spirit, but I love the solution they came up with and just ran with it.

This is the first time I’d ever run a seasonal special and, although Christmas is particularly important in a Victorian setting, I didn’t want to fall into the usual cliché of the Christmas Carol rip-off. If it’s not clear, the spirit was the Scandinavian equivalent of a dryad, connected to the imported Christmas tree; it wasn’t happy with the noise and heat and decided to freeze all involved.

One thing I discovered with this game is that sometimes miniatures are very important, even in simple fights. Confusion rained during the fight with the zombies as to who was where and next to whom…

Back to the Stolen Lands

After a few weeks of one-shots and even a couple of weeks without any gaming at all -- gasp! -- we returned to our regular Pathfinder campaign this week, with games on Sunday and Friday. After a bit of wandering about our lands dealing with what would be called sidequests in another medium, the plot has us exploring further afield, and despite some allusions to Roanoke that are about as subtle as a volcano, it's been a pleasure to return to a more sandboxy type of play. This week's sessions featured a lot of rulebook page-flipping, but I'm not sure if that's due to the increasing complexity of the game as we get to eighth level, or a lack of familiarity with the rules after weeks away.

In other news, production has begun on Savage Eberron III: The Riddle of the Forgotten Hoard. Samuel L Jackson is expected to reprise his role as diminutive dinosaur rider Galaxy Jones, and an open casting call has been put out for short, bearded actors.

Savage Eberron II: The Jewel of Galifar

Last summer, my regular group decided to devote a weekend to gaming. The event came to be kown as "BenCon", because who can turn down a good -- or bad -- pun? Over the two days, we played a big game of Twilight Imperium, were introduced to the wonderful Cold City, and got in a couple of sessions of Savage Worlds, one of which was my experimental mash up of that pulp-flavoured ruleset with the pulp-flavoured setting of Eberron. While the two seemed to work well together in terms of tone, I wasn't satisfied with how the game went.

As it became clear that our schedules would align to enable another gaming day, we decided to have a Winter BenCon during the Christmas break. This slipped back as real life got in the way, but we managed to organise one solid day of gaming to take place in the new year, and three games were arranged: Stuart was set to run a RuneQuest scenario using Mongoose's samurai sourcebook, and I'm sure he'll be reporting on that soon enough, while Dave was going to run us through a Trail of Cthulhu investigation, and I had planned a sequel to the earlier Savage Eberron adventure. As it turned out, Dave had decided to move back to Vancouver and so was neck deep in packing, unable to devote time to preparing a game; as a result, the schedule for the day was curtailed and became a simple double bill.

My scenario was a loose sequel to the earlier game, not a direct continuation but a new adventure featuring the same player-characters, although the format did allow for new characters. As such, we welcomed Galaxy Jones, a halfling dinosaur rider with the personality of a Blaxploitation character, complete with afro hairstyle and leopard-skin coat. Galaxy turned out to be something of a glass cannon, dealing out massive damage from the back of his mount, Shep, but proving to be quite fragile when unseated. Stuart developed Fibulon, a professional duellist, and passed his previous character, warforged soldier Tactica-206, to his son Sebastian. Aside from Tactica-206, also returning from the previous episode were Dave's half-elf bushwhacker Kawa, and Ben's deaf dwarf artificer Stones McGuffin, while Manoj was unable to attend due to illness, so his half-ogre vuvuzela-toting bard stayed at home.

The party had been hired by a self-titled "collector of curiosities" named Jobar Lenskin, who had heard rumours of an item called the "Jewel of Galifar". This was a treasure of which he'd heard nothing before, and his regular sources and contacts were also baffled, all of which made him want this Jewel even more. As such, he tasked the player-characters with finding out more about the item and if possible to retrieve it for his collection. The characters followed their leads to the gnomish nation of Zilargo, and the canal-crossed city of Trolanport. There, they headed to the home of a local businessman named Arno Salvatore, as they'd heard that he might know more about the Jewel.

The game began with the player-characters in a boat outside Salvatore's front door. They knocked and, receiving no answer but hearing the sounds of someone running within, broke the door down. Inside was a courtyard with what looked like some disused boats covered with tarpaulin, and steps heading to an upper level on which could be seen an open door. The team went for the stairs, only for the tarpaulin to be flung aside, revealing a huge warforged with four spider-like legs and massive stone axes instead of hands. A short fight ensued -- despite its high stats, the warforged was an Extra and required only two hits to incapacitate -- and the party rushed upstairs to find a small library on fire and a tall, athletic man standing by the window. He smiled at them, gave a mock salute, then leaped out the window, across the canal outside, and on to the roof of the building opposite.

I had designed a fun parkour-like chase across the rooftops which would then evolve into an elemental speedboat chase along the canals of the city. What in fact happened was that every single character who attempted the jump made it with ease, and they caught up with their quarry in short order. A quick tussle on the roof ensued, but with no way out, the man surrendered, and the complex map I'd drawn out on the tabletop went unused. Sigh. During the brawl a crowd had gathered in the piazza below and Kawa decided to pose as a member of the Trust -- Zilargo's secret police agency -- in an attempt to explain the party's unusual behaviour.

Dragging their captive -- who claimed to be Arno Salvatore -- back to the house, the player-characters went through the documents he had attempted to destroy, and also had a go at interrogating the man himself. He proved resilient, and it seemed as if he was more frightened of someone else than he was of the characters, but they did manage to find out that while he did have the Jewel at one point, he had passed it on to his associates, who had either taken it to, or were based at, a location in the forests to the south of Trolanport. It was also implied that he did not know what the Jewel was, as it was sealed inside some kind of container.

Dave then attempted to derail the adventure further when an agent of the Trust came snooping around and his character Kawa decided to not only threaten said agent, but knock off his impressive stovepipe hat to punctuate said threat. The players were convinced to allow the agent to speak to Salvatore, and although the captive attempted to paint the player-characters as villains, the gnome seemed to know that not all was as it seemed. He indicated that he had some previous connection to the characters' colleague Eddie Stone -- Rick's character in the previous game, a changeling private eye with a shady past -- which was enough to save their lives, but that they should leave town if they valued their ongoing health. A couple of the party members had spotted evidence of what might have been snipers surrounding their current position, so the group decided that the gnome's advice was sound, and leaving Salvatore in his custody, they headed to the docks and boarded a ship heading south.

A day or so later, the characters were dropped off at a nondescript stretch of coastline and headed into the forest. After a while they found the tracks of a group of humanoid travellers and followed them until they picked up the sounds of loud voices talking in the goblin tongue; McGuffin knew a little bit of the language and thought that the goblinoids seemed to be drinking and having a laugh, and were not on high alert. There was some brief discussion on whether or not to rush the camp, but in the end the party decided that the goblinoids were not an immediate threat and that since their own destination was in a different direction, a fight would be an unnecessary diversion at that point.

The trees began to thin out and ahead of them, across a stretch of featureless terrain, was a small two-tier fortification. It appeared to be a remnant of the old hobgoblin empire and despite being thousands of years old, was still in fair condition; McGuffin assured the rest of the group that no goblinoiod structure could possibly last so long and that dwarves must have had a hand in its creation, but it sounded to them like the typical ravings of a Hobgoblin Denialist. The player-characters didn't think running across all that open ground in broad daylight was a good idea, so sat down in the cover of the treeline to observe the tower, picking out a number of green-clad guards patrolling the battlements.

Night fell and a rain storm swept in from the coast, all of which was deemed enough cover to make a move on the tower. Galaxy and his dinosaur went first and made it to the outer wall of the fortification, then the woodsman Kawa followed, but something about his approach alerted a guard and a crossbow bolt flew out of the darkness, striking the half-elf and bringing him to the ground. At this, the rest of the party abandoned stealth and charged up to the walls.

The outer walls were ruined in places, allowing easy access into the yard within, where the team discovered a group of guards -- I described these as wearing green ninja-like pyjamas, because a horde of ninjas is almost as good as a bunch of Nazis when you're running a pulp game -- and a handful of snipers atop the battlements of the tower itself. The party tore through their opponents -- as expected, as they were Extras -- with Galaxy Jones and Shep proving quite deadly, and gained entrance into the tower. More of the green-clad warriors were stationed on the stairs and landings within, and so began a running battle up to the roof, with only a brief pause to block the door to the battlements, trapping the snipers outside in the storm.

Up on the roof, the party encountered more of the warriors, as well as one who wore a carved metal facemask instead of the cloth masks of his followers, and who stood alongside an iron casket covered with runes and decorative carvings. By this time, the rain had become torrential, and in a bit of an old-school touch, I threw in a bit of randomness by declaring that when the four of clubs was drawn from the initiative deck, a bolt of lightning would strike the tower, centred on the character of the player who'd drawn the card. I did not expect this to come up much, if at all, but it happened four or five times during the battle. Apparently, it was quite the storm.

This became something of an epic confrontation, with bennies being spent left, right and centre, and the player-characters' luck failing them at key moments. Highlights included Kawa's knockdown brawl with a bog-standard mook, a fight which lasted the entire length of the battle and beyond; the arrival of a manticore just as the player-characters thought they might have the upper hand; and Fibulon sliding along the rain-slicked stones of the roof, between the legs of the combatants surrounding the casket, tripping up the leader, and just catching himself on the edge by one hand. In response, the masked figure used the Havoc spell -- from the Fantasy Companion -- to knock the player-chracters around and send the duellist over the edge. Fibulon survived the fall, landing on the lower battlements, right behind the snipers the party had left trapped there! There was a brief moment of uncertainty as Fibulon and the surprised crossbowmen eyed each other, then the duellist leaped off the lower battlements -- again suffering no damage -- and began his ascent back up to the fight above.

Reaching the roof, Fibulon got his revenge on the masked mage by running him through, but the manticore battled on, as did the nameless minion tussling with Kawa and, by this point, Stones McGuffin. Fearing defeat, the player-characters changed tack and got the casket off the roof and down the stairs; the manticore, too large to follow, took flight and disappeared into the thick cloud cover, while the lone henchman dodged through a number of attacks to follow the casket. He would likely have followed the party all the way home had Tactica-206 not shoulder-barged him off the stairs to his death two storeys below.

Safe if only for a moment, the party stopped to catch their collective breath. Galaxy Jones' dinosaur mount had been killed, he had suffered serious injuries, and he'd laso been blinded by the manticore's venom. The half-elf woodsman attempted to administer first aid, which resulted in the halfling bleeding out and suffering permanent organ damage, losing one level of his strength attribute. Nonetheless he survived the medical attention and was just about fit enough to make the mad dash across open ground to the relative safety of the forest. Luck was on their side, as the crossbowmen remained occupied with their attempts to get off the lower roof, and while the manticore had returned to track them from the air, it lost sight of them as they got deeper into the forest.

The team made it to a small village, and from there obtained passage back to their base of operations, where the injured could recover and McGuffin could examine the casket. The old dwarf figured out that it seemed to be under the effects of a permanent Time Stop spell, and rigged a device which would interrupt the magic long enough to open the container. Inside they found a girl, little older than ten and in a deep sleep. She seemed familiar somehow, and some of the party members thought she had a noble look to her features. When the girl woke, she seemed confused by her surroundings, and claimed she was Jenna ir'Wynarn, the oldest child of King Jarot, the ruler whose children's disagreements over the proper order of succession had led to the century-long Last War. All of which was very interesting, as there was no historical record of a Jenna ir'Wynarn.

If her story was true, then the girl would be a person of great importance to the whole of Khorvaire. The party decided to keep her existence secret until they knew more, so sealed up the now empty casket and delivered it to Lenskin, who seemed disappointed that the Jewel turned out to be a unique but unexciting magical item.

---

I enjoyed this session much more than the game I ran at the summer event, I think because I managed to better capture the pulp feel of the setting. I was disappointed to lose the chase sequence, but the battle up and atop the hobgoblin tower was worth it, with the tide shifting a number of times, and all sorts of unexpected and unique events occurring over the course of the fight. The players were challenged, and there was a serious danger of characters -- perhaps the whole party -- being killed if the team hadn't made the wise decision to get the casket -- and the focus of everyone's attention -- out of the picture. This caused the manticore to withdraw to reconsider its position, and allowed the party the breathing room to escape.

The big fight atop the tower did go on a long time, and the session ran over by ninety minutes, in part because the manticore was so difficult to hurt. Its Parry score was not impressive, but it had a Toughness score of eleven, which soaked up all but the most damaging effects, although in fairness it had used all its bennies and had suffered a wound by the end of the fight. The players, Dave in particular, were cursed with poor damage rolls in the later stages of the battle, and found themselves unable to put down a nameless mook, let alone the big boss monster; as such I'm reluctant to put the grind -- I say "grind", but I don't know if anyone really felt like that, as everyone seemed alert and interested -- of the fight down to a flaw in the Savage Worlds system. In the previous adventure, the players chopped through all their oppenents at great speed, so I'm almost certain it was just bad luck. We'll see how Savage Eberron III goes!

Savage Sneak Peek

Notes for my upcoming Savage Eberron game, entitled "The Jewel of Galifar" and which sees the adventurers visit Trolanport, the gnomish city of canals.

What's in a Name?

Presenting, for your enjoyment or utility or both, one hundred words pulled from Blogger's comment verification system. If you're ever stuck for a name for a corrupt wizard, a decadent city or an exotic island, just roll a d100 on the the table and you're done. It's a bare bones file, with no fancy formatting, but one day I might tart it up a bit or even expand it to a d1000 table.

Blood Bowl (Nintendo DS)

Games Workshop's Warhammer is a juggernaut of a franchise. Its runaway success has changed the company from a single hobby shop in Hammersmith to an international corporation, and the game has expanded beyond the tabletop into board games, role-playing games, video games, MMORPGs, novels, comics, and even, in the latter stages of 2010, a straight-to-dvd film, although reviews haven't been too good on that last one.

Warhammer is the company's core product, but there's also a horde of lesser games, lost to the mists of time and commanding high prices on eBay, stuff like Chainsaw Warrior and Lost Patrol. Somewhere in between is a middle tier of games that have never been huge money-spinners, but have remained popular enough to remain in production, on and off, throughout the company's life. Blood Bowl is one of these, a Warhammer-ised version of American football, with orcs and goblins beating seven shades out of dwarves and elves, and with maybe a touchdown or two thrown in. In the game, players take it in turns to advance their teams up the pitch, seize the ball, and through applied brutality, agile footwork, or dead-eye accuracy, attempt to get the ball into the end zone to score. Their chances of doing so are modified by their teams' skills and statistics as well as a significant amount of luck, as generated by the rolling of dice.

In 2009, Blood Bowl was released to a number of video game platforms, including this DS version. It lacks the 3D environment of the PC and console releases, opting for a isometric viewpoint; while some may view this as a negative, and it does at first glance seem like a retrograde move back to the 16-bit era and a waste of the DS' capabilities, the viewpoint works in the game's favour, allowing for a wider field -- pun intended -- of vision, as befits what is, after all, a game of strategy.

Similarly, the lack of a real-time mode turns out to be a missing feature which is not missed, as the end result is something which is more or less a straight translation of the board game into electronic form. The original board game is strong enough that 3D graphics and arcade-style gameplay are not improvements but unnecessary distractions, and for whatever reason they were removed from the DS edition, it has resulted in a better game. The fidelity to the source material also means that those players who want a quick game of Blood Bowl, but can't find an opponent or don't have the space to set up the board, can instead whip out the DS and indulge. There is also a rudimentary local multiplayer option, as well as a "hot seat" mode, which may be a misnomer on a portable system.

All that said, some features are indeed missed, such as the wilder players and options some of the teams bring along with them, and while eight types of team are included it is disappointing that evocative races such as the dark elves and undead have been overlooked. It is possible however that only those familiar with the original game will miss these bells and whistles, as the core gameplay offers plenty of complexity to keep strategic thinkers happy. On the other hand, those same strategic thinkers may not be quite as happy with the difficulty of the game; while the single-player mode will prove a challenge due to an aggressive CPU, the AI does on occasion seem to engage in some wild and hare-brained schemes, such as sending players to the far corners of the pitch to await passes which are never likely to come, or withdrawing strong blockers from the front lines, and so on.

The game benefits from good graphics, with good designs and smooth animation, although it would have been nice to have some variation in how the players moved. There are some neat cut scenes during the game, with the referee stepping in to conduct the opening coin toss and adjudicate fouls, and so on, and there are is a brief appearance from the game's commentators, familiar to those who have played the board game. Perhaps the most important cut scene of all is that which plays when a touchdown is scored, and alas this is the most disappointing, with dodgy-looking cheerleaders and no variation in the animation at all; it would have been a neat touch to have included burly orc cheerleaders, ethereal elven cheerleaders, bearded dwarven cheerleaders, and so on. The game also lacks much in the way of music, with only one or two tunes in evidence, although perhaps a wise move to shun in-game music, which could have become annoying with individual matches taking up to an hour to play.

This lack of polish can sometimes be an annoyance, but the game survives. There are some glitches in the code that may prove to be a more fatal issue. Outside a match, the game can sometimes take a long time to move between screens, which could be put down to loading times were it not for the simple fact that Blood Bowl is a cartridge-based title. At times, the game can lock up during these pauses, necessitating a restart and the subsequent loss of data, most annoying during a league game where a team has built up money and experience over a season. Other editions have been fixed by updates, and a new version of the game was released in 2010, but neither have made it to the DS alas.

All in all, Blood Bowl on the DS is a very basic game, and the lack of features and polish can be a bit disappointing at times. That said, the core gameplay is strong, a faithful adaptation of a great board game and at the end of the day, it's the gameplay that matters most.

What a Carrion

Last night, we wrapped up the Pathfinder one-off we started last week, with the player-characters successful in rooting out the cult activities in Carrion Hill and defeating the eldritch abomination the cult had summoned.

As I mentioned before, I found the Pathfinder ruleset to be far less intimidating to run than I had anticipated, but even so I think it's too bitty -- in the sense that it has a lot of working parts -- for my liking, and if I were to run a D&D variant again in the future, I think it is likely to be something a bit more loose and interpretative like Swords & Wizardry or Labyrinth Lord. The move in D&D3 -- and thus Pathfinder -- to codify everything has I think led to a situation where exploitation of the rules has become more possible, rather than less; a good example of this is the idea of an optimum character build, something which is almost unknown in earlier editions. I don't begrudge the playing of the system in this way -- indeed my monk in Ben's game is an example, with his five attacks a round and his inability to be hit -- but I do wonder if the game as a whole is unbalanced in loading all this on the players' side. Much as I hate to admit it, but the Unmentionable Edition is perhaps more robust in this regard.

I'm sure it is possible to head off the exploits and level the playing field, but I suspect it takes a familiarity with the game that I am never likely to have, and that it would be easier to achieve in a simpler system. We shall see, as I have already been asked to run something under Swords & Wizardry.

I also wonder if these issues would have been as prevalent if the adventure had been better. I was quite impressed by Carrion Hill as I read through it, as it has a clever time-sensitive element as well as a neat modular structure reminiscent -- perhaps deliberately -- of the classic Masks of Nyarlathotep. The players are thrown into a situation, but can tackle the next sections in any order they please, which in turn can affect the climax of the scenario. The problems arose in the details, and these only became apparent in play.

The adventure suffers from a lot of glaring bottlenecks in the plotting. For example, the vital clue which lets the players know what to do next and unlocks that modular structure is written in Aklo, a language most characters are unlikely to have, and which is not even represented among the included pre-generated characters; the party got around this by having the cleric spam Comprehend Languages for a whole day, but that led to them falling afoul -- if only a little -- of the time limit. On a similar note, there are far too many sections where high skill values in Knowledge (Arcana) and Disable Device are required to progress, which can end the scenario right there and then unless the GM fudges things. The scenario more or less demands that a wizard and a rogue are in the party, but nowhere is this mentioned, and again the pre-generated characters don't measure up and are unlikely to hit the numbers required.

Furthermore, nonsensical situations abound and only exacerbate the bottlenecks. A building with an epic-level lock on the front door is bad enough, but for the same building to be made of thick stone, to have no windows and for the doors to be made of the same thick stone stretches credibility. Is this a fortress, perhaps? Or a gold depository? No, it's a brick factory. The whole adventure seems to be designed in this negative, passive-aggressive fashion, where everything is there to hinder the players, as if this were not a game, as the whole point of it was not for people to have fun. That said, some faults lean in the players' favour, such as the villain who occupies a room too small for the whole party to enter, which would be fine if he were a close-quarters fighter rather than a magician. Or the big final monster of the scenario, which is so big that by the rules as written it should not be able to get out of the first location, let alone get close enough to the player-characters to menace them at the climax.

I have bought two of Paizo's adventures. One was so awful that I knew it from a read through, but Carrion Hill surprised me. If I am to use their scenario materials again, it will be as a source of ideas rather than something to be run as is, as the convenience of a pre-written adventure is outweighed by the poor writing.

Found

With our regular Pathfinder campaign paused in order to give GM Ben a bit of time to recharge, we've been taking the opportunity to try some new games. Last week Stuart blessed us with another excellent Cold City scenario -- it remains a brilliant game -- and last night I picked up the baton and ran a one-off Pathfinder scenario, as Ben had mentioned that he was keen on seeing what it was like to play the game from the other side of the GM screen. I picked Paizo's Carrion Hill, as all my games seem to turn into Call of Cthulhu at some point, and this gave me an excuse.

I think I ended up running the thing by default, as no one else was in a position to volunteer, and I have to admit I was a bit concerned. My tastes in game design are for more simple rulesets, not the five hundred page monster that is the Pathfinder rpg, but I think it turned out okay. While the game does seem to have a rule for everything, in most cases you can get away with picking a target number, and getting the players to roll a d20 and add the result to whatever ability you just decided on a fraction of a second before.

One might think that having a prepared scenario helped, but I've discovered that Carrion Hill, which seemed so strong on a read through, has some real problems. I won't go into them now, as we're only half way through and I don't want to spoil anything for next week, but suffice to say that it has some serious design flaws, some of which a half decent editor should have spotted.

All that said, my first attempt at running the game didn't seem to be as huge a disaster as I'd imagined it would be, but I'm still not sure it gave Ben the experience he wanted! He has been nudging me into running Swords and Wizardry or Runequest though, both of which are much more my kind of thing, so we'll see what, if anything, happens on that front.

The Ministry of Blades : The Madness of Angels, episode 2

Dr Pleasant is introduced; Prentiss chases a burglar.

Played

18^th November 2010.

Dramatis Personae

Lady Antonia deVore - a Heavily-armed Aristocrat.
Captain Benson Curruthers - a Military Policeman.
Doctor Zephaniah Pleasant - a Sinister Surgeon.
Miss April Sharpe - a Self-taught Inventor.
Jack Prentiss - a Dodgy Pedestrian.
The Chief Verger of St Paul’s Cathedral.
The Foreman of Burland’s Contractors.
Mrs Geffey, a Worried Wife.
Mrs Bodie, an Unconcerned Wife.
The Very Reverend Greenfield's Valet.

Plot

The team descended to the central area under the dome, where they found a tall, dark figure waiting somewhat impatiently. Introducing himself as Dr Zephaniah Pleasant, another Ministry agent, he demanded to know why he had been dragged out of bed at such an ungodly hour. While Marsh ducked out into the streets to pursue some leads of his own, Curruthers brought him up to date on the mystery and their discoveries so far. Pleasant requested access to the body and proceeded to carry out a more thorough examination; although he was able to learn little new, he was able to confirm the others’ suspicions.

The team decided it would be helpful to examine the Dean’s office. Taken upstairs to the west wing of the building, they found a smart but somewhat sterile room. A detailed examination of the furniture and window frames and a search for secret panels discovered little of interest. Musing that he would have kept anything of interest at home, Curruthers realised that the key in the pocket book was for the front door of a house. Deciding to investigate this later, they asked the Chief Verger about the works in the roof.

The Verger took them to the Records Office, situated in the Chapterhouse nearby, where he pulled out a ledger and tracked down the works order for the job. As the office of the contractor was close by, they headed there first. Upon arriving, they found the foreman looking rather annoyed: it seemed three of his workmen had failed to report in this morning, and while he expected this kind of behaviour from Bill and Charlie Bodie, he thought better of the senior mason, Martin Geffey. It didn’t take long for the team, posing as a Metropolitan Police investigative team, to discover that these were the workers from the Cathedral project and to obtain their addresses. They moved on to Geffey’s address, a decent, if small, terraced house in the East End, where they found his wife beside herself with worry: he had failed to return home last night and she was worried something had happened to him. Asked if he ever stayed late at the pub, she told them that he was not a heavy drinker and was devoted to his family. Mrs Bodie, meanwhile, wife of Charlie and daughter-in-law of William, was completely unworried; while both men had failed to come home, this was hardly unusual and she was much happier when they weren't cluttering the place up.

The team decided to move on and investigate the victim’s private residence in Islington. Once more presenting themselves as members of the Met, they were admitted by his valet, who they questioned with care, discovering that the staff were very upset by the news. He agreed to let them examine the Dean’s study, leaving them to take their time. Carrying out a thorough search of the room, they turned up a bundle of personal letters, a series of personal journals, a collection of reference works on the study of the angelic hierarchies (from several different traditions) and a pair of hefty looking tomes in Hebrew. Miss Sharpe tried her Detecteronatron again, detecting a faint aura around the Hebrew works, which Dr Pleasant now took an interest in.

After they had searched for half an hour or so, several of them heard noises from upstairs, not unlike furniture being moved. Curruthers reacted immediately, heading out and up the stairs at the double. He found the door to the room above closed and knocked, listening for a response. He heard the sound of footfalls, moving away from the door, and tried to open the door, planning to give chase. Unfortunately, the door was locked but Prentiss, currently standing idle, was looking out of the window and saw a pair of boots descending from above. Wrenching the window open as their owner dropped past him, he sprang out to give chase…

Savage Eberron: Bards

In my Savage Eberron game earlier this year, Manoj played a half-ogre bard. At the time I did not have access to any official rules for bards in Savage Worlds, so I made some up; since then I've got hold of the Fantasy Companion, which has the Troubadour Professional Edge, but I prefer my version, as it's a bit simpler.

Bards are arcane spellcasters, and follow all standard rules for Arcane Background (Magic), with the following exceptions:

• A bard's arcane skill is Perform (Spirit), and this skill may also be used for mundane performances. A bard's Charisma modifier may be added to skill rolls for both mundane and arcane purposes.
• A bard may only cast spells through the playing of a musical instrument, singing a song, orating an epic poem, performing a dance, and so on. If the bard cannot perform this action, they cannot cast the spell.
• All spells are available to the bard, as long as they could plausibly be cast through one of the above methods. For example, an inspiring song might have the same effect as Boost/Lower Trait, but it is more difficult to explain how dancing could generate a Barrier. Common sense and GM discretion apply.

Absolutely Nothing!

Yesterday Stuart posted some musings about wargaming, and it got me thinking about the fine art of pushing little tin lead white metal soldiers about a table.

As a teenager I did a fair bit of wargaming, although it was all of the Games Workshop variety, aside from one afternoon playing The War Machine mass combat rules from the D&D Rules Cyclopedia. I have a poor head for tactics, one that borders on the comedic -- some of my opponents might say moronic -- so I was never much good at these games; I won my first game of Warhammer Fantasy Battle with a bold undead cavalry charge and thrashed a GW staff member at a display game of the then-new Epic 40,000, but aside from a long unbeaten run at Warhammer 40,000 -- because Genestealers were very, very broken in the first two editions -- that was the extent of my success as a general. Even so I still had great fun playing, before rising costs and rules changes -- in the case of 40K a combination of both, with the increase in the basic army size in the third edition -- pushed me out of the hobby.

Also, if I'm honest, I'm rubbish at the painting. I have a smidegeon of artistic talent, but I can't transfer that to the painting of figures to save my life. My neon pink Genestealer Cult is an embarrassment to this day.

So that's why I don't play these games any more, despite there being a sizeable community of tabletop wargamers here in Brighton. I'd love to play, but I can't afford an army and even if I could, it would look like a four-year-old painted it. A blind four-year-old. With no hands.

Even so, Stuart's post woke my long-dormant love of wargames, and so I did some poking around. Even after being out of the hobby for over a decade, I knew enough to know that Warmachine is a popular alternative to the Nottingham hegemony, and I've seen some of the models in use in our various role-playing game campaigns, so I know that they're well designed bits of kit. The game is based around small warbands -- just like the Warhammers back in the day -- which might make the painting a bit less painful for me, and the game's emphasis on the mechanised warjacks with infantry as support reminded me of the Workshop's Space Marine, my favourite of all their wargames, despite being no more successful at it than anything else.

Then I saw the cost of the models, comparable to GW's pricing but for even less stuff, and that killed my interest in Warmachine. Maybe if I win the lottery. In the meantime, the world is spared my neon pink Cygnar warjacks.

So that was that, but then for some reason the Dreaded and Unmentionable D&D4 popped into my head, perhaps because it's often criticised as a wargame masquerading as an rpg. I don't think that's entirely fair, as it's more that the strong emphasis on the combat system makes it very easy to ignore everything else, but it did get me wondering about what could happen if one embraced that criticism and played D&D4 as a wargame.

The first step would be to create an interesting battlefield, with lots of environmental features to add some tactical flexibility to the game. Pits, areas of difficult terrain, things to climb on, and so on, nothing too unfamiliar to the average wargamer. After that's done, there seem to be two options:

• Classic Mode in which one -- or more -- player creates a party of heroes and pits them against a monstrous force. This would be D&D4 as written, more or less, only there'd be no plot or role-playing, as the emphasis would be on the battle, which has the handy side-effect of heading off the problem of the fight taking up the entire session, as so often used to happen.
• Total War in which the players decide on an XP budget as described in the DMG, then buy monsters -- which need not be actual bug-eyed beasties -- and set them against each other. This version would feel much more like a traditional wargame.
  

I don't know how exciting it would be, or if D&D4's mechanics are too involved and complex for a wargame, but based on my experience of it, I don't see why it shouldn't work. This is more or less what the Dungeon Delves book does, after all, it's just less honest about it.

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!

How to game on little energy

I am now ‘progressing’ into my mid-40s, and somehow, thanks to having tolerant gamers in my gaming group, am still able to game!! Admittedly, folks have been very flexible to help me (and Stuart) out in this regard….. Insane amounts of work (I teach social sciences and thus have tons of marking, and an ever shifting teaching / knowledge domain) coupled with commuting 2 hours a day....

And also wanting to enjoy Brighton and go to the occasional gig, stay in touch with non-gaming friends, see a film, play some boardgames..….

How has the show been kept on the road (for me at least)?

Flexible & nice bunch of fellow gamers (and their wives) – who agreed (well - their wives did) to let me and Stuart shift the game to Friday so we are able to get more than 2 hours of gamage in an evening… and sometimes, somehow, from 7.30 to 12.30+...

Playing games which are more cathartic/ cinematic…. Like D&D / Pathfinder more and less heavy on the investigative games we all played when we had more energy (like Kelvin still does!!)….. (I do feel very guilty on Kelvin’s behalf – how he copes hanging around with a bunch of old fogies is beyond me. ;) If I am not jumping up and down, shouting and throwing dice I tend to fall asleep (yeah – like Father Jack – urg – is that me??!! Don’t answer that!)

Pathfinder too has helped…. I remember creating a pc for a 3.5 Eberron ‘campaign’ (it only lasted 2 sessions when the GM got distracted by Red Hand of Doom, and scrapped the campaign to run that, again for another 2 sessions or so, before quitting the DM’s shield!!)…. But to create a 3.5 edition D&D pc I was using 4 books: the Players Handbook, The Complete Adventurer’s Handbook, Eberron Core Rulebook, and Warriors of Might (I seem to remember) – Stuart used 5 since he was playing a Shifter, found in the Races of Eberron book…. MADNESS!! With Pathfinder, all you need (currently) are the Pathfinder RPG and - MAYBE the Advanced Players Guide……. And maybe the Bestiary if you are being a fussy b*gger and want to play a talking crow. ;) BUT for most folks, all you need is one book. PHEW!

Other things that help speed up play, and save on DM time:

Get tons of preprinted cardstock dungeon tiles. WotC are bringing out boxed sets now.

A battle mat – such as the Chessex one Leisure Games sell (see right)

Prepainted minis – invaluable – it is taking me ages to find time to paint my metal ones. These can include ones from eBay – as in children’s toys – which you can get on the cheap. Stuart has just got some after the last insane session where our mage, Grameer (aka Manoj) summonsed about 4 rhinos to take down ‘Owlzilla’, a giant Owlbear in mail barding, along with the other creatures in the party which included a Griffon.

Play games for which there is plenty of online support. Pathfinder Adventure Paths offer this – in the form of free pdfs of the scenarios if you subscribe; forums with tips and resources from other GMs; software tools such as ‘Free PDF Image Extractor’ – freeware – which enables you to strip a map from a pdf down to its image without any text/ labelling so you can copy and paste it into word, blow it up into a bigger size and print it off to game on.

Healthy eating! Well - sometimes - but we try! Diabetic Fridays has calmed down a little!!

The Ministry of Blades : The Madness of Angels, episode 1

Marsh follows his nose; Miss Sharpe tries out her new toy.

Played

4^th November 2010.

Dramatis Personae

Lady Antonia deVore - a Heavily-armed Aristocrat.
Captain Benson Curruthers - a Military Policeman.
Miss April Sharpe - a Self-taught Inventor.
Jack Prentiss - a Dodgy Pedestrian.
Rodney Marsh - a Partially-reformed Thief.
Mr Erasmus Rooke - the Boss.
The Chief Verger of St Paul’s Cathedral.
A number of Industrious Cleaners.

Plot

Shaftesbury Avenue, October 1888.

Returning from Highgate Cemetery with the corpses of the werewolves stowed in the Ministry’s own hansom cab, the group were asked to produce their reports as soon as possible. Once this was completed, they were asked to come into Mr Rooke’s office.

Their superior informed them that he had just heard about the apparent suicide of the Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, the Very Reverend Reginald Green. As the Dean was a good friend of his, he wanted to send his best team to investigate; unfortunately, they were occupied with the Ripper case at the moment, so he was having to send Captain Curruthers’ team instead. Rooke did not believe it was a suicide, so they were to take special care to confirm that this was a murder and find the culprit - starting immediately.

Picking up Marsh outside the Quartermaster’s Office, the team headed for the City. Entering the Cathedral, they were introduced to the hassled-looking Chief Verger, who said he had been expecting them, immediately raising some suspicions given the lack of Police on the scene. The Chief Verger was somewhat surprised when Lady Antonia and Captain Curruthers complained about the removal of the body to the Crypt and subsequent cleaning of the floor. He explained that early services would be starting soon and that this couldn’t be allowed to disturb the congregation.

Curruthers dismissed the cleaners while they attempted to divine what they could from the blood stains between the tiles. The body had landed almost directly beneath the open central occular of the dome: either the Dean had made a prodigious leap from the Whispering Gallery or he had fallen from the walkway around the occular Inspecting the body, they confirmed that he had indeed fallen from a great height (and rather messily). The Dean had been a very tall, thin gentleman in his sixties, bald, with a fringe of white hair. His face appeared to be locked in an expression of extreme fear and there was a fresh, horizontal wound across his forehead, such as might be inflicted by a club.

Proceeding upstairs, they investigated the Whispering Gallery, confirming that there was no evidence of him jumping from there. Curruthers spotted a staff doorway leading to a spiral staircase up into the dome, so they made this their next destination, discovering a five foot wide walkway around the occular at the top of the dome. It was little-used and covered by a thin layer of dust, showing up footprints clearly, and they found a scuff of the right size on the ballustrade, which seemed to indicate he had jumped. Miss Sharpe, meanwhile, decided that this was an ideal opportunity to test her new device, Sharpe’s Detecteronatron, designed to detect spirits and other magical emanations; she did not detect anything, other than an odd glow from Marsh, indicating a need for further tinkering, perhaps? Taking a copy of the footprint, they located more prints on the stairs, indicating someone running up them, a prodigious feat for an elderly minister. Marsh remained on the walkway, planning to shapeshift into his rat form and sniff around. Distracted by a strong smell of cheese and nearly killed by a powerful rat trap, he abandoned this approach rather quickly.

The remainder of the team followed the footprints back out onto one of the walkways above the false ceiling of the Church, winding in and out of a series of low beams and rafters. Locating a bloodstain on one of them, indicating that he may have hit his head, the found that the trail ended at a fenced off area at the far end of the roof. Some maintenance work had been taking place here and stonemason’s tools were scattered around an opening in the facing of the wall, which revealed the rubble infill. They determined that something (a block about 18 inches square) was missing from the infill, but were unable to locate it. Miss Sharpe tried her gadget again and, momentarily, thought she saw a screaming face in the mists inside, but was unable to get it to come back. Shaken, she switched the device off, turning to see Lady Antonia and Marsh extracting what appeared to be a pocket book, complete with a key ring, from under the eaves.