Category Archives: RPG

Some 3D printing currently in progress

D&D, Last Days, RPG

My friend Duncan is printing off a couple of Dwarven doors for me on his 3D printer. And I thought I’d share with you the latest progress photo he sent me.

This is looking pretty awesome. And will look amazing on the tabletop.

Duncan has also been printing other things for me too.

Despite having not played a game of it yet, Duncan is printing some new threats to use with Last Days, triffids.

Wait, Last Days is all about zombies you say.

And yes it is. However in issue 2 of Blaster, Ash Barker, the games creator, published rules called Last Days Evolution. These rule additions allow you to retheme Last Days. So instead of zombies you could have for example triffids, or xenomorphs.

Luckily there is a 3D modeller who did a set of triffid models for printing. Which I discovered by accident looking for 3D models for something else. When I saw them I instantly thought of the new rules. I could instead of playing The Walking Dead/Dawn of the Dead, now I can be playing Day of the Triffids.

I have fond memories of the BBC adaptation of the book from the 80’s. Which would account for why it’s sitting in my Amazon Prime library. Wasn’t too keen on the new version they did a few years back.

So I’m pretty excited about getting some triffids (which may or may not turn up as a threat in our D&D campaign) and using them in a game.

As I was writing this post the 3D modeller gave an update that they have updated their cylon models (see below).

They look pretty cool. I do prefer the classic 80’s tv show cylon to the reboot version. Although I do love the reboot.

And yes, Last Days and the Evolution rules could be used so that these fine cylons could be the threat.

The scenario would be the cylons have located Earth and launched an invasion, killing any humans they come across. Which would allow me to reuse the the stuff I have put together already to use with Last Days.

But it doesn’t stop there.

Galeforce 9 sell an Aliens board game called Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corp. Luckily there is no need to buy the game and it’s expansions to get the miniatures. GF9 kindly sell those separately. So along with using them for the Alien RPG (probably why they decided to do this), yep using the Last Days Evolution rules all of a sudden it gets an Aliens reskinning!

This two could use my current scatter terrain because in the classic Dark Horse Alien comic the xenomorphs did get to Earth.

However I need to start getting some reusable sci-fi terrain together for various RPGs which could be used with cylons and also aliens. But that project is for another day.

I love that Last Days is flexible enough now to cater for most people’s needs. It can be a 1v1 skirmish game, co-op, or even solo. It can be a campaign or one-off. It can be any theme you want now. Plus the Timelines rules from issue 1 of Blaster allow you to play in either modern or the Wild West! Although the article reads like there should be other time period examples as well, or that it was written as another rule book for the game.

I can’t wait to get this to the table.

Planning an online RPG!!!!!

RPG

One thing that I have missed a lot in this year long pandemic is gaming with my friends. Particularly I have missed our D&D sessions. I can’t wait to get back to our campaign.

“But wait Darren, you can play D&D (or any other RPG) online using various online tools like roll20, discord, zoom etc.” I hear you all shout at the screen and me.

And you are totally one hundred percent correct. There are literally hundreds if not thousands of RPG games of one type or the other being played online. Let alone all those that also stream their games live on the internet.

However playing an RPG online doesn’t appeal to me. There is something about it that just doesn’t grab me with enthusiasm. I know my home setup isn’t geared to running the likes of roll20. Using owlbear.rodeo and discord (although I can’t drag and drop images into discord on iOS) is an option. But still I’m not inspired. RPGs are something a group of friends gather round a table for. I know I’m having a hard time articulating my objections to playing an RPG online.

Then the unexpected happens. I get tempted to run an RPG online! What changed?

I think it was Wednesday when I saw a tweet about someone playing a RPG online where no one is allowed to talk, they have to communicate via text messaging or a group chat of some kind. The person tweeting really enjoyed their experience. That RPG was called Alice is Missing.

So I googled the game. Saw that it was around £15 to buy online. Which takes it into worth taking a punt and trying it territory. Sadly it was out of stock everywhere. So I made a post on BGT&C.co.uk on Facebook asking if anyone had a copy they no longer wanted. One of the early replies pointed out I could get a digital copy of DriveThruRPG for £11. Result.

Basically you are buying a print and play version of the game. That is if you want to play it gathered in the same room. However the thing about this that attracted me to it is this is should be very suitable for playing remotely.

“What did we just hear you right there? You are thinking of playing a RPG online?”

Yes you heard correctly.

Alice is Missing has me planning to run a RPG online.

Luckily in the rules there are some tips/pointers to doing this. Plus on the website there are links to roll20 and to a discord template for setting up a discord server to play the game. Plus the publisher provides some resources to download to use to play the game online but not everything that is needed. And that is the annoying part. It’s like the publisher has done half a job. Why they couldn’t have put everything you need to run the game online into the DriveThruRPG files I don’t know. It would have made sense, plus they would have got money for them as well. Heck I wouldn’t have minded if they even added on a couple more pounds to do this.

So now before I even think of sounding out potential players from our gaming group (which will include giving a content warning as it can potentially include some subject matters that some may find upsetting) I need to extract digital copies of the files/cards that are not included in that handy download the publisher provided from the print and play side of the package bought from DriveThruRPG.

Now apparently I saw mention online that there is an official discord server for discussing the game, and they have bots to aid playing the game plus the “missing” files you can download. However when I press the link on the official publisher site for the game it just takes me to the discord server I setup using their template! I reached out to the publisher through twitter but have had no response to date.

So I am in a little holding pattern while I get over these little humps before I hopefully get to play this RPG online.

From the vaults!

Blast from the past, D&D, Judge Dredd, miniatures, RPG

Chance is a funny ol’ thing.

It was by chance that I stumbled across some old miniatures in the bottom of a cardboard box, that I had totally forgotten I owned.

These miniatures are over 30 years old now! We are talking circa 1988-89. That was a period of my life that had more than its share of life changing events.

I really don’t know how I ended up with a painted set of Dark Judges. I must of had them for playing the Judge Dredd RPG. But I never did get round to playing it.

I most definitely can’t tell you for sure who painted them either. I remember my good friend Chris Thompson did some painting for me. I’m pretty sure he did the minotaur below. And most likely he did the others too. The one thing we can be sure of is I didn’t paint them.

But I’m not complaining. How ever these came into my possession back then they will be perfect to use with the Judge Dredd and Worlds of 2000 A.D. RPG now (assuming I can get people to play that is, or will it be like the original RPG for me?) At some point in the next couple of years EN Publishing will be making the Dark Judges supplement. I can’t wait for that to be released. These will be perfect.

The minotaur is for Bloodbowl, and that would be first edition Bloodbowl. Naturally I don’t play Bloodbowl now a days or since I first owned this miniature back in the day. However I think I’ve just got my Angrath miniature for my D&D campaign!

I have no idea what so ever why I ever got these two ninja miniatures. They do seem a tad on the big side. But I’m sure I’ll find a use for them.

Finally the two unpainted miniatures are Gandalf and Legolas from LoTR. If memory serves me right they were part of a set that made up the fellowship of the ring. Where the others are I have no idea. Unlike the ninjas these two figures seem on the small side!

I think these bits of my gaming history from when I was studying in Brighton bring back some fond memories from that time. Memories that often get over shadowed by the more life changing ones that were happening at the time.

Back then I played MERP on a Wednesday afternoon, as the hobbit Dram. It was the role playing society that taught me the secret to making alcoholic jelly, and introduced me to LARPing. Good times. Care free times. Maybe that’s why I’ve backed Free Leagues The One Ring 2nd edition. It’s a different system to MERP but maybe I’m hoping that it will recapture those good times once again.

Pointcrawls

D&D, RPG

Ever since Sly Flourish in his weekly DM Prep YouTube video mentioned and then started using Pointcrawls in his Eberron campaign I’ve been curious.

Being the lazy so and so I am. Instead of doing my own research on Pointcrawls, I decided to wait for Sly Flourish to write a blog post about them.

The waiting game paid off when Sly Flourish recently put up a YouTube video about Pointcrawls with links to articles that go into them in more depth.

I’ve embedded the video below.

So why am I interested in Pointcrawls?

Way back I wrote a post about travel and making them interesting.

Within our campaign we have land and sea travel.

For the land travel I have tried using The One Ring rules, or a version of. It went ok. For the sea travel I used a variation of the hex crawl rules from Tomb of Annihilation. Which also seemed fine.

But I’m constantly conscious of the players getting bored, not engage, or tired of the repetitive nature that these types of travel have.

Pointcrawls sound like from what Sly Flourish has said something I may find solves some of this. Obviously it will have its own drawbacks. Which I’m sure will become clear once I start reading the articles Sly links too.

And the one thing I can be sure of with current world events is I have time to look into this before our campaign resumes.

Quest Decks by Dice Dungeons

D&D, first look, new arrivals, RPG

Nearly a year ago now I backed a Kickstarter for these deck of cards to be used with RPGs called Quest Decks.

By there end of the Kickstarter there were ten quest decks unlocked. These decks covered various genres and types of missions:

” •  The Notice Board – Filled with traditional quests a party may find in a fantasy town.

•  For The Crown – Plunges your character into a world of nobles and intrigue. A chance at bigger rewards, but with higher stakes.

•  Into The Stars – This sci-fi themed deck will take your players on Interstellar adventures. Designed to work great for space-fairing games such as Stars without Number and Starfinder.

•  Grimm Adventures – Explore spooky crypts and dark secrets in this eerie, ghost-themed deck.

•  Coastal Threats – Great for coastal regions and seafaring campaigns. Explore docks districts and seek buried treasure.

•  Far-flung Journeys – Embark on quests that require distant travel that will take you beyond the edge of world.

•  Neon Dystopia – From megacorps to mechanoids, dive into the neon shadows of the future in this cyberpunk inspired deck.

•  Eldritch Omens – Bring a touch of madness to your game and investigate unknowable horrors with this Lovecraftian themed horror deck.

•  Uncharted Expanse – Take your sci-fi adventures to edge as you explore the outer regions space.

•  Partners in Crime – This deck will have you using all your wits and cunning to plan heists, shake down shop owners, and fight for territory.” (Taken from the Kickstarter page)

I backed for five decks of my choice (a decision based on funds, and interest), and the physical copies arrived a couple of days back. I’ve had the digital versions of the decks I chose for a while. But unless I was in a hurry to use them, printing my own copies to use didn’t appeal to me.

The nice thing about the digital version of the decks was the “bonus” content. These are pdfs that any DM would find useful. There were three in total, A Lively Encounter (tables to add depth to random encounters), 50 Plot Points to Add Depth to Your Side Quests, and D100 Names (can never have enough lists of names).

The decks themselves are fine quality wise. I’d have preferred maybe better card stock for the deck boxes and cards. However I plan to sleeve the cards anyway, which means the deck boxes are redundant and most likely for the bin.

Each deck consists of forty five quest cards, three blank cards, a quick guide card (although the Quest deck didn’t have this), and an advert card for more Quest Decks.

I’m looking forward to using these Quest Decks. Tie them in with some of the other decks and the npc dice, and it’s possible to create a random quest, dungeon, and NPC’s on the fly during a session. Or as inspiration whilst session planning.

What is old is new!

D&D, RPG

Well the new year is upon us and so far very little has changed from the previous year. It’s just more of the corruption, lies, ineptitude, shelfishness and just plain old incompetence.

My bedtime routine during the last few nights has consisted of listening to the 12 Days of Christmas Edition Wars from The Tome Show podcast. “In this special mini-series Brandes Stoddard and Sam Dillon take a deep dive into the Dungeon Master’s Guides from each edition of our favorite game.”

It’s been a fascinating look at the previous editions and this morning I finally got round to digging out the Dungeon Master’s Guide 2 for D&D 3.5, and the Dungeon Master’s Guide for D&D 4.

There were a couple of things that the hosts mentioned that I thought sounded still valid for use with the current 5th edition. And I wanted to make sure I had them as notes to refer to later on when session prepping or running a session.

The first thing I added to my notes was the sidebar on page 30 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide 2 for 3.5. This contains “Sample Move Descriptions” and “Sample Quips and Battle Cries”. I thought these would be something I can add instantly to my combat encounters (once our sessions start back up).

I also made note of the Prioritizing section on pages 32 – 34. This is all about what you can do preparing for a session based on how much time you have available to prepare. Although I’m a fan of the Lazy DM. It’s always handy having another opinion. Plus I thought at some point it might be an interesting exercise to contrast and compare the two.

Page 34 also has handy ideas on aids you can create outside of the session to help improvise at the table. Which cross references to a handy table on page 98 to create random tavern names. I already have plenty of tables to use for names. But I might look at the other suggestions in a post.

I thought the Random Politics table on page 86 looked very useful for its intended use of creating a quick political profile for a medieval-style kingdom. I can use this every time my adventurers discover/arrive at an island.

The 50 Rumors and Hooks on pages 88 – 90 to use within Towns and Cities looks handy for bringing them to life in my campaign.

Another long but handy list/table to have starts on page 99 – 101 is the 100 Instant NPC Agendas. This will hopefully bring my NPC’s to life and make them more memorable.

The Dungeon Master’s Guide for 4e had one page I wanted to add, and that was purely from what The Tome Show said about it. That was page 42. It talks about actions the rules don’t cover. When I saw this page I thought “this looks kinda familiar”. Indeed it did it looked similar to a page from the Lazy DM Workbook. And like one or two comments by me above I think it will be a the subject of another post comparing the two.

I should note that a fair bit of the advice on sessions, planning adventures and campaigns that isn’t system specific still is of use today.

Roll & Play: The Game Master’s Fantasy Toolkit

D&D, RPG

I think it’s well known that I like generating random content and having tables to roll against.

My latest addition to the myriad of tables for me to use for inspiration while session planning or even during a session is the Roll & Play: The Game Master’s Fantasy Toolkit from Roll & Play Press.

Roll & Play was published with the help of a successful Kickstarter campaign (one that I sadly did not back), and was finally available to the public to purchase last November.

There are over 120 tables with in the pages that cover I would say the majority of a DM’s needs. The contents above give you a good idea of the sort of tables included.

I like that the tables use a variety of die. They are not just d20’s, but you will be using d8’s, d12’s, and d100’s as well.

Another nice feature of the book is that it is spiral bound. Which means it can lie flat or fold in half. The paper stock used is quite thick and robust as well. And should take rough handling, along with wear and tear of use from being lugged around in a bag really well.

Along with the many tables, scattered throughout is handy advice relevant to the table you are rolling against. Which in itself could inspire.

Roll & Play: The Game Master’s Fantasy Toolkit is different from one or two of the books of tables I have because those were aimed squarely at session prep, whilst this sits firmly on the fence of being able to be used for session prep and during a session. With the emphasis on the during a session.

Hodge podge

Commander, magic, MtG, RPG

We are now in to the last few days before Christmas. A Christmas that will be unusual for many. Where time will be spent away from loved ones instead of with them.

Over on the Fenland Gamer discord server we have a game of chess in progress. Which at the moment looks mainly to be between Jonathan and myself. Gavin did suggest a couple of moves. But otherwise it hasn’t captured anyone else’s imagination and had them participate.

Sitting in my pile of RPGs to try are the new Fate Condensed rules, and the Fate Space Toolkit (a source book for running space themed Fate sessions).

It’s looking like the Cyberpunk Red core rules won’t be hitting the UK FLGS’s until the new year. It’s the now expected reasons for the delay of current world events. So I’ll try and get a copy then.

The last couple of days have seen the start of the Kaldheim spoilers.

If I remember correctly Kaldheim is a viking inspired set.

There have been a couple of cards spoilt that will be insane in my elf tribal Commander deck. Elven Ambush (below) potentially could give me an insane number of elves on the battlefield. With cards like Essence Warden (life gain), Elvish Vanguard (gets bigger), Ivy Lane Denizen (+1/+1 counter) also giving a major benefit from playing it.

Canopy Tactician gives a nice Lord effect making everything else bigger, and taps for 3 mana.

I like Sarulf, Realm Eater. I’d like to use it in the new deck I have in the works.

There are some nice looking angels as well in this set. And I really do need to revisit my angel deck and update it. Especially since Iona got banned.

Naturally I have preordered the two Commander decks that will be coming out along side Kaldheim. Plus a couple of the white and green themed boosters. I also have a prerelease kit preordered too. I’m still deciding whether I’ll get a draft booster or just a gift box.

I’m also tempted to pick up some of the excess prerelease kits that my FLGS has left over from previous sets. Thanks to world events times have been hard for all FLGS’s. It’s because of this that this rare opportunity is an option. Under normal circumstances this would not even be possible because they get sold out prerelease weekend. It’d be cool to use some as prizes once physical MtG is possible again to once more try and get something started locally.

Chewing the fat about nothing

RPG

This morning as I was drinking a rather nice Costa Rica coffee (with notes of cherry, yellow fruit and brown sugar according to the notes, and yes I am a coffee snob) that I got from Craft House Coffee, an email arrived from Gamesquest Fulfilment.

They had just posted my physical copy of the Rogue Trooper supplement for the Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000 A.D. RPG.

The nice thing about pre-ordering back in August/September (whenever it was made available for pre-orders) from the publisher EN Publishing is that I got the pdf version of the rules immediately after placing the pre-order.

After an initial scan of the pdf, it has sat in my virtual library untouched.

I’ve been a fan of Judge Dredd, Strontium Dog (the other supplement introducing classic 2000 A.D. characters so far to the WOIN based system) and Rogue Trooper since their first appearances in 2000 A.D. and Starlord (for Strontium Dog before it merged with 2000 A.D.)

The nice things about these three books that cover three major 2000 A.D. characters is that they represent three very different genres/themes.

Judge Dredd is along with it’s social commentary basically a police procedural. Whilst Strontium Dog with the issues it touches on, is at heart a western. Finally with Rogue Trooper you have your band of brothers war movie.

Sadly for me these three books join a growing pile of RPGs that are not getting to the table.

If the current pandemic hadn’t thrown a major wrench in the works, and I could find interested parties (easier said than done) I could happily be playing/running two sessions a week of non-D&D RPGs.

I suppose I could be doing that now. But I am not a big fan of playing a RPG online. I find them boring to watch (which is an unpopular opinion). And it just doesn’t appeal to me for playing. Plus my main computing device is an iPad Pro and the Roll20’s and Fantasy Grounds of this world are not a brilliant experience on this platform.

In the meantime while I am waiting for things to become safe once more for people to meet up and play games, I can dream and make plans.

The Unhallowed temple of the Phase Spider

#randomdungeon, D&D, RPG

I can’t believe I forgot that I had another way of generating ideas for an adventure using random content from tables using dice rolls.

I think it’s pretty obvious that I’m a fan of Sly Flourish aka Mike Shay and his “Way of the Lazy DM” (that’s my words about it not his).

Each week on YouTube Mike uploads his twitch stream of his prep for his ongoing campaigns. Which are really useful to see the lazy DM principles at work, how another DM preps for a session, and their thoughts on the adventure they are currently running and D&D in general.

Mike has a Patreon (which popular content creator doesn’t?) One of the perks of being a patron (ie giving them money) is access to a regular updated document of Adventure Generators.

“These generators are not complete adventures. They’re intended to inspire you to develop your own adventures based on these themes. They’re intended to help you quickly and easily come up with a scenario that you’d want to run for your group.”

The current themes covered are “Adventurers for Hire”, “Dungeons Deep”, “Seven Samurai”, “Arena of Fate”, “Jaws”, “Apocalypse Now”, and “Dogs of War”. As you can probably guess from the theme names more than one of them has been inspired by a popular movie.

If you can’t decide even on a theme to use, you could always create your own table to roll against to select a theme before moving onto that themes tables.

For this example exercise I’m going to come up with a scenario that could be used in my currently on hiatus D&D campaign.

Although I think any of the themes would work within the campaign. We have already done an arena combat. So I’m ruling that one out for now. I’m feeling pulled towards the “Jaws” theme.

The premise for this obvious movie inspired theme is the following:

“A powerful beast of nightmare holds a settlement in terror. The characters are hired to cut through the threats of the wilds and hunt down the beast before it can kill again.”

There are six tables that I will be rolling a d20 against to create this themed scenario.

The first table is “What is the Beast?” I rolled a 9. Which means my big bad for this scenario is a “Phase Spider“. Not very nautical. But let’s see how this comes out.

The next table and question I am rolling an answer for is “What Makes the Beast Unique?” For this I rolled a 2. So the Phase Spider “Can turn invisible”. This beast is going to be one difficult so and so to get rid of when this combines with it’s ability to “…magically shift from the Material Plane to the Ethereal Plane, or vice versa.”

The Phase Spider needs a liar, and that is the next table “Where does the Beast Reside?” Unlucky for some I rolled a 13. So it looks like my party of adventurers will be venturing into an “Unhallowed temple”.

The next table/question we roll against tells me “Who Protects the Beast?” The d20 said 15. This came out with Devils protecting the Phase Spider. I like this a lot. It fits very very nicely with the previous tables result. Plus this gives an opportunity to make a “deal with a devil”.

Let’s find out what motivates the Phase Spider against the next table “What Drives the Beast?” Double unlucky for my adventurers I rolled 13 again. So the Phase Spider is the “Guardian of a disturbed tomb”. Wow these last two rolls have come up trumps for the liar.

The final table tells us “Who Else Hunts the Beast?” The dice have spoken with a 12. Which means some Trophy hunters are also hunting the Phase Spider.

So here is our adventure idea:

“The adventurers arrive at an island where a Phase Spider has held a settlement in terror ever since clerics disturbed it trying to recover holy relics from a tomb. The adventurers have been hired to hunt down the beast in it’s liar, a nearby unhallowed temple before it can kill again. But the adventurers are not the only ones hunting the Phase Spider, Trophy Hunters have been seen in the area. Rumour has it that the temple is guarded by devils.”

I went to the Dyson Logos blog and searched for temple maps. As you can probably guess there are a few temple maps to choose from.

The secret for me in which to choose is how big a map do I want to use, and does it look right for what I’m using it for.

I decided to go with the “Ye Olde Temple & Crypts” map.

I like that it has crypts. They speak spider lair to me.

The next step with the map is to follow the steps in this Sly Flourish post “Building Lazy Dungeons“. But that’s something for another post on another day.

So there we have it a quick adventure generated for my campaign. A third way of inspiring ideas!