Category Archives: RPG

D&D Grp 2 Session 11 Planning #5

D&D, D&D Grp2, RPG, session planning

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign/session. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one. REMEMBER you have been warned.

YouTube threw up a video or two of the Dungeon Dad into my feed and I’m glad it did.

Dungeon Dad does this monster of the week thing looking at monsters in previous versions not in 5e. The one that first caught my attention was his video on the mageripper swarm. A swarm of creatures that attack magic users.

Half the group are magic users.

Now the hard part is where do the party encounter this swarm?

Another video he did was on The Bagman from Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft. This really did capture my imagination.

Once or twice the party have mentioned a bag of holding. So having a twist that comes with having one is awesome.

I love the idea of showing the players the sequence of art depicting the Bagman coming out of the bag of holding, along with some suitable creepy description of it emerging from the bag.

This might be something I could use to interrupt that long rest in the future.

There is also a 3D stl file that can be downloaded and printed using a 3D printer. Naturally I have messaged Colin with a link asking if he san print one for me.

I’m not sure if I’ll use the stat block the Dungeon Dad came up with or just run with the stats of a troll (one of the suggestions) possibly adjusted.

But still two cool monsters to add to the menagerie to call upon during a session.

D&D Grp 2 Session 11 Planning #4

D&D, D&D Grp2, RPG, session planning

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign/session. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one. REMEMBER you have been warned.

This whole American import of Black Friday and the much more recent Cyber Monday and the pre-Christmas money grab that it is I do find kinda obscene and morally questionable.

However overcoming my inner conflict about the whole thing, I did take Monty Cook Games up on their Black Friday discount for getting the pdf version of their Ptolus City By The Spire source book for 5e.

The main reason I did this was to get the stat blocks for the npc cards. However this is a massive book, with a lot of digital extras too. I may just might have to pick up the physical copy at some point.

I already knew the art in the book was gorgeous from the npc cards I bought.

The cool thing is that the npc cards also tell you page numbers of where the stat blocks are. Which is very handy and time saving not having to search through the 679 odd pages that make up the book.

The stat blocks are in the margins of the pages, which works! They usually refer you elsewhere to a common stat block which might be in an official WotC source books, or on a given specific page of the book.

Sadly for me Rullus Hobb isn’t an npc but a player handout with no stats! But now with the sourcebook I can use the appropriate stat block from the book itself or from WotC stuff.

Granted I’m going to have to do some work to gather the relevant info into one place like on a blank card template from Arcane Library for easy reference during a session.

Apart from the npcs I’ll be using this city source book for ideas to use in my campaign. I’m pretty sure I’ll get more than a couple of ideas/hooks from here.

Well before I left to visit Nathan the postie arrived and had the Stormwreck Isle 2D miniatures with them plus the Amazon guy had the Deck of Many Things.

So at least I don’t have to worry about these arriving, and they are ready to be thrown into the DM bag and any session.

Hope’s Last Day – An Alien RPG Taster Session Prep #2

Alien, Alien RPG, one shot, RPG, session planning

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming Alien RPG cinematic adventure Hope’s Last Day. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one. REMEMBER you have been warned.

We have a date for when we are going to get round the table to play the cinematic introductory adventure Hope’s Last Day.

Which should be a day or two before the D&D campaign happens. Yeah some lessons I just never learn.

As part of my prep I’m rewatching the movies again. Plus watching the odd actual plays on YouTube to get an idea how to run a year zero (the engine the Alien RPG is based on) adventure. They are definitely presented differently to the D&D 5e adventures I am used to.

If memory does not let me down I have the maps for this already without a need to print them out for the players. I just need GM annotated copies for myself.

So still lots to do, and I’ll keep you updated as I go along.

D&D Grp 2 Session 11 Planning #3

D&D, D&D Grp2, RPG, session planning

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign/session. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one. REMEMBER you have been warned.

Well poor communication and the lack of anyone taking the initiative on setting a time means the session didn’t go ahead.

I’ve put up new dates and times for two weeks time. So waiting to hear if they work for everyone else now, and some sort of consensus.

In the meantime I’ve caved and soon a deck of many things will be in my grubby hands waiting for the party to discover.

In the now no longer running other campaign I used a deck of illusions. Which seemed at the time to go down well.

On a practical level the deck of illusions used a bog standard deck of cards. Nothing special about the cards or deck at all. You just have to remove the cards 3-7 of each suit, leave the jokers in to get the 34 cards that make up the deck of illusions. I need to recreate this deck for this campaign.

I know that if/when the party come across the deck of many things that a certain female gnome will not only pick up the deck, but draw a card from it.

The great Matt Colville did a video about the deck of many things years ago now as part of the running the game series of YouTube videos.

Some great advice in there for using the deck of many things. Advice I may just follow.

One of the cards in the deck of many things, the skull summons an avatar of death. I’d love this as a 2D mini (I love these from Wizkids) but to have enough to take on the party I’d need to buy multiple copies. They are also available as 28mm prepainted minis. But that wouldn’t save me much money (even if they were in stock).

Sadly for the group with the delay I have time to weave either or both of these decks into the campaign and the next session.

I like the idea of Rullus Hobb leaving one of these behind after their initial encounter with him.

Which reminds me I really do need to get a stat block for him.

I’m still waiting for the Stormwreck Isle 2D miniatures pack to arrive. It should be here real soon. Well in the next week. Hopefully.

Laters…

D&D Grp 2 Session 11 Planning #2

D&D, D&D Grp2, RPG, session planning

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign/session. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one. REMEMBER you have been warned.

I’m not sure what’s happening tomorrow. There has been no chatter on our groups messenger chat.

As if reading my mind or the posts on here, Mike Shea has written an update for the City of Arches about the Sunken Rethrea area of the “under city”.

It’s a separate document at the moment that Mike (as we are on first name terms despite having never met or communicated with each other) has shared with his patreons (that’d be me and many others) to get feedback before adding it to the main document.

Sunken Rethrea is an area that the party will have to navigate through to get to the the vaults to find the key needed for the archway to Choul, and stopping Ibraxus.

With the addition of the following I am a little confused.

“Stairs of Darkspire. The mages of the Tower of Kartan have a narrow spiral staircase leading to the ruined tower of Darkspire. The mages warded the staircase and vaults with powerful magics to prevent the horrors of Rethrea from working their way back up into the lower tower. The mages of Kartan often send adventurers on quests through this staircase with keys able to bypass the wards. These keys only work for a short amount of time lest they fall into the hands of enemies below.”

Does this replace the following from the Kartan, Tower of the Arcane description?

“An ironbound glyphed door on the first floor stands in front of a stairwell leading deep into the ground below where numerous laboratories and vaults of the dark wizards remain largely untouched.”

Or is it in addition?

It’s definitely an interesting part of the city to explore, and as hinted previously an opportunity to introduce horror elements to the campaign.

If we do persue the Rullus Hobb plot thread Temple of the Three Sisters then I need to give Rullus some suitable minions. I see Rullus as some sort of Joker like character capable of the most heinous of acts.

Some of those minions might interrupt that long rest of the party!

D&D Grp 2 Session 11 Planning #1

D&D, D&D Grp2, RPG, session planning

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign/session. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one. REMEMBER you have been warned.

It’s suddenly dawned on me this coming Sunday is our planned next session.

I have no idea what we will be doing.

I’m assuming the party will be following the Rullus Hobb plot thread. So I will need to keep a map handy for a temple.

The Dragon’s Rest map from the new Starter Set Dragons of Stormwreck Isle looks just perfect for the Temple of the Three Sisters.

Although the party are taking a long rest. I’m tempted to interrupt it! Allow them the benefits of a short rest, give them exhaustion (using the new One D&D rules for it), and drag them kicking and screaming into the world.

Not sure what or why they get disturbed. I need to think about this.

I had a revelation whilst writing the post about the arrival of two classic adventures that for the ruined cities buried beneath the streets of the City of Arches I can reuse town maps from other adventures.

Why I didn’t think of this earlier I have no frickin idea?

I can repurpose the Ruins of Thundertree from the Starter Set adventure Lost Mines of Phandelver for Sunken Rethrea, and Phandelver or one of the classic town maps for the Lower Reaches.

Bit tired, need to do some brainstorming. Catch you in the next post.

Two New Copies of Classic D&D Adventures Arrive

D&D, DM/GM Tips, new arrivals, RPG

If you have been watching Matt Colville’s Running the Game YouTube videos for anytime you will have seen episode 7 – Your Town (video embedded further down in the post).

In the video he talks about using a town from an existing adventure like Phandalin in the Lost Mines of Phandelver.

Matt Colville – Running the Game episode 7 – Your Town

He then goes on to talk about the three he uses, Hommlet, Orlane, and Milborne from classic D&D adventures.

Now if you have been playing D&D for a very long time you may own the adventures these towns appear in.

However if you don’t (like me) you could go to eBay and pay eBay prices for original copies.

Or you can look on DriveThruRPG get a good quality scan as a pdf for less than £5, and/or (if an option) get a physical copy at a very reasonable price. Which will definitely be cheaper than the eBay prices.

I finally got round to adding copies of The Village of Hommlet, and Against the Cult of the Reptile God, to add Hommlet and Orlane as resources to use.

DriveThruRPG do a good job printing, the copies are stapled together magazine style. Being print on demand the turn around is pretty quick too. These took about a week.

I’m a big fan of the repurposing of existing adventures to save work in my own campaign.

I’ve used maps from Ghosts of Saltmarsh, and Lost Mines of Phandelver in my current campaign.

These two classics join others I have in my “library” of classics to call upon.

There is a copy of the dungeon map from the Keep on the Borderlands in my DM folder incase I need an unplanned dungeon during a session (read here for why).

The Mastering Dungeons podcast did a series of episodes on updating old adventures to 5e. They (along with Seth Skorkowsky) have looked at the Isle of Dread, which I have as the heavy Goodman Press printing, and a copy of the original.

Sadly I’ve had to settle for just the pdf for the classic adventure Pharaoh! It be cool to get a physical copy but not at eBay prices. But it’s more the maps I was interested in. At least with the pdf I can print these out.

It’s worth listening to the Mastering Dungeons series as it will give you ideas for updating old adventures for use in your own campaign, or you might think that sounds cool I’ll get it for the maps.

Old adventures are a great resource to raid for ideas, maps, even adventures to run. Yeah they might require a bit of work to use in 5e, but I think they are worth it.

Hope’s Last Day – An Alien RPG Taster Session Prep #1

Alien, Alien RPG, one shot, RPG, session planning

Plans are afoot to run the cinematic one shot from the Alien RPG core rulebook, Hope’s Last Day.

I floated the idea soon after the D&D taster session. It’s amazing what you’ll do whilst on the high of a “successful” session.

No date has been set yet. But all those that took part in that taster session are keen to try it. So once I have my work schedule that covers December I’ll suggest some dates. Obviously learning from our mistakes we won’t be choosing a night that there is an open mic session going on.

This will be a very different experience for all of us. None of us have played the Alien RPG, nor run it. So it will basically be a learning game, most definitely mistakes will be made, but as long as we have fun.

Two of us have the core rulebook. Plus I also have the starter set cut down rulebook. So it won’t be the group sharing a single rulebook.

I’ll be rewatching (I watched this video ages ago) the Seth Skorkowskys review of Hope’s Last Day (see below). Not only does Seth review the adventure itself, but you also get useful tips/advice from his experience from running it.

I was hoping that Free League had the pre-filled character sheets ready to download and print for use. But they don’t.

I will try to produce a GM cheat sheet for the game similar to my D&D one. They are handy for quick reference. And I think will really be needed this time.

Tonely Hope’s Last Day or any Alien RPG adventure is going to be be much darker than a D&D adventure (unless you are doing something based on a realm of dread).

There will need to be a session zero discussion before the actual play. Particularly warning the players of the darker theme, use of body horror (we’ll look into this more in another post). Plus get in place a safety system for when playing, and what subjects etc to avoid.

That’s about it for now. Lots to do. So you bet there will be more posts.

Grp2: When last we left our heroes… #10

D&D, D&D Grp2, post mortem, RPG

Later than planned but this has been a busy week at work, and I felt like writing the other post mortem for the taster session first.

So let’s get on with looking at session 10 of the campaign set in Sly Flourish’s City of Arches.

The party met up with Adele and Tantalos outside her Emporium of Magical Relics. Where they were told a mystery person is trying to find out lore and artifacts that will allow the Children of Ibraxus to open an archway to Choul and allow the return of Ibraxus.

Whilst Adele and Tantalos went off to speak to the Golden Council, the party were sent off to Kartan, Tower of the Arcane to speak to archmage Savandra Thricecursed.

Instead of asking about the impending threat of the archway to Choul being opened up, the party decided to find out more about Rullus Hobb (an evil sorcerer who has a pretty large reward out on him). During their conversation with Savandra they were given some items that might help them.

The party adjourned to an inn to unwind and discuss plans. Which saw the party splitting into those that needed to unwind some more, milk contacts for information, and those that needed to get some rest (party poopers).

On the way back to their lodgings Jeb, Babs, and Dottie got attacked by a group of thugs. A fireball and some moves later the thugs were defeated just as the others turned up.

We left our party settling in for a well earned rest at their lodgings.

Post Mortem

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following part of the post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this part of the post and join me in a future one. Don’t give in to temptation go read something else. #justsaynotometagaming

Work really does get in the way of having a good time!

Like the previous session I had another early shift on the day of our planned session. Which meant another ridiculous long day. However it’s the only way we could fit the session in. So needs must and all that.

This was a role play heavy session. Not my strongest strength as a DM.

It was strange in that sense.

I did end up throwing in an impromptu combat near the end to try and add a contrast to the rest of the session, and draw back in the odd player that may have started to get bored (of which I’m sure there was one).

For that combat I did have the players roll for initiative instead of using the cards to decide it. I used for my initiative roll a number from a list of die rolls I’d done before the session started. That list will be used in future combats.

I still get amazed by what the players pick up on and ignore.

With the players ignoring the thread about the return of Ibraxus and instead concentrating on the manhunt the majority of the secrets and clues went out of the window. They would have been dropped in the conversation with Savandra had they gone down that route.

Yes I could have stared the conversation to the Ibraxus stuff, but that would feel like I was railroading the players. I do like the players to have freedom in what they do. Even if it means I have to throw away what I prepped and improvise on the spot.

Although they will find that whilst they are off doing whatever the return of Ibraxus will progress. Even if it’s snippets of the story they get via Adele and Tantalos, who will be doing everything they can to stop it.

There is a potential John Wick 3 thread I can use that came out of the session with the Drenol character. Having Drenol excommunicated from the mercenary group he is a member of for offing another member might be an interesting sub-plot to follow.

As we left it the clock ticked over another day…

A date was set for the next session.

One Shot Taster Session Post Mortem

D&D, game night, post mortem, RPG, taster

It’s a day or two since the D&D taster session took place. Even longer since the D&D campaign was held. But here we are with the post mortem for the taster first.

Despite a less than conducive environment for playing D&D everyone had a good time, and enjoyed themselves.

The adventure that I went with for the session was The Lost Tomb of the Delian Order (by Matt Colville).

I started the adventure off at the foot of the hill on a dusty road with the owner of a local inn hiring the adventurers to investigate missing people from the nearby village.

The inn keeper gave the party a bloodied bone and told them to break it when they got to the entrance of the tomb. The bloodied bone was a magical item I created to cast the spell aid over the party when it was broken into two.

Sadly the party did not do this.

They finally did use it over the scrying pool.

On a practical level I used The Giant Book of Battle Mats (generously given to me by Shane) along with scatter terrain to give the layout of the tomb.

I should have used my Big Book of Battle Maps because table space was once more limited. I thought before hand we would be using two of the folding 6ft tables.

However unbeknownst to us all, the evening of our taster session at the community centre it was also open mic night.

In my opinion they would have been better off watching us play D&D than listening to the public murder of songs.

That’s why earlier I said that the environment was less than conducive to playing D&D.

The volume of the “performers” murdering rock and pop songs was bordering on making it impossible to play.

The Wizkids 2D miniatures worked well. I think the players enjoyed having something to represent their chosen characters.

The puzzle in the adventure appeared harder than I thought it was. The other group I’ve run this adventure with got it pretty quickly. A fact that when strategically shared with Gavin made him determined to solve the puzzle.

I did give some time at the start of the session for the players to read their character sheets and ask questions. There was a whistle stop tour of the abilities and how an ability check works.

Having multiple copies of the Starter Set rulebooks available was a good call. I think for a taster session for new players they were just right. Especially for finding out the details of the spells. Easier to navigate, and a lot less to search through.

I did half the damage that the goblins did in combat. It seemed the right thing to do considering they low hit points first level characters have. It meant I was able to avoid a tpk. Although it was looking likely at one point!

Having The Arcane Library PC Cards on hand with the pregen details on was useful, and worked well for me.

I think that’s about it for now. Who knows if and when I’ll run another taster session. Maybe it’ll just be an adhoc one one shot for this group instead.