Wait I forgot to give this a title before posting!

Game day

Yesterday afternoon saw another battle for control of the planet Arrakis, also known as Dune.

This time it was the Harkonnen (me), Atreides (Jonas), Emperor (Diego), Space Guild (Oli) and the Fremen (Jeff) slogging it out, making alliances, all for control of the spice.

The Emperor and Harkonnens made the first alliance. At that point they had three strong holds between them, and just needed to clinch the final fourth one. Something they failed to do, and spent more time defending what they had at a great cost.

Later on a more potent alliance was made between the Space Guild and the Fremen, leaving the Atreides out in the cold, struggling for spice. This was an alliance that grabbed the win of four strongholds in round seven. The Space Guild ability to take their turn when they liked during the movement phase allowed them to pick off the two remaining strongholds that they needed.

I enjoyed the game as a five player experience. Playing the Harkonnens was fun. I loved having a bigger hand of treachery cards, and more options on the traitor front. Holding Carthag was something I wanted to do for as long as possible because of the benefits being there gave me. Such as great movement range and increased spice mining.

I’m not sure about alliances for odd numbers. There will always be that one person left out, competing against the odds. The solution is possibly no alliances at all or to,allow more than two houses in an alliance.

But for a thirty five year old game, I don’t think they have changed the rules hardly at all in this reprint, it holds up amazingly well.

We had a blast for the afternoon. I look forward to the next “big” game afternoon.

Goblin Druid

miniatures, painting

I did some painting yesterday. It was just one figure. But it had been partially started a few months ago. All that had been done at that point in time was the hat mask combo.

So it was time to finish it.

At the time of buying I was after a goblin wizard. It was to be used for the Matt Colville Tomb of the Delian Order Adventure that I was going to be running (my first experience as a DM – and yes the power went to my head).

However my Internet travels looking for one were fruitless. But I did find this goblin druid. It looked wizard like! I could use that, who’d notice?

And no-one did.

The only time this plan will fail is if I need a goblin druid and wizard in the same encounter. Hopefully this will be a rare occurrence. Planning and all that.

So now I have a table top ready goblin druid that will masquerade as a wizard from time to time as and when needed.

Update on planning session 6 #2

D&D, RPG, session planning

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.

Technically not a post specifically about the next session.

Yesterday the third series of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina was released on Netflix. I’m probably not the main audience that the series is aimed at. But I’m enjoying this reimagining of the character/tv show a lot. I think they have done a good job of producing something that appeals to a wide audience.

However this isn’t meant to be a review of the show.

Whilst watching episode three it struck me that I can borrow a story idea for my campaign.

A long running plot thread for my campaign is this mystical weapon that belonged to The King of the Seas. A weapon that was broken up and it’s pieces scattered to the wind. The players have heard rumours that a piece of this weapon has been discovered.

In this latest series of Sabrina as part of a contest to retain the throne of hell. Sabrina and a demon lord upstart called Caliban are competing to find three “McGuffins”, sorry magical items. The person that finds all three first becomes ruler of hell.

So far one piece was found. A crown that had a guardian who was awoken when the crown was taken.

It was this that got me thinking. I could use this in my campaign. Naturally there will be challenges to overcome and minor guardians involved with the remaining pieces. But once they are all assembled to make the mystical weapon this will awaken the decayed remains of The King of the Seas. Who will come to claim his weapon. Naturally there will be an epic battle over who has this mystical weapon.

So that’s the idea. It’s long term. But these are my notes as well as a short distraction for others.

I’ve also decided how the Tyrant of Mintarn should be played. I think she should be like Lord Vetinari, Lord Patrician of Ankh-Morpork (from the Discworld books). These two quotes from the Wikipedia page sum up how the Tyrant will be played “…include his mastery of diplomacy and manipulation, his distant and menacing air, his everpresent calmness and composure (which, ironically, make other people ill at ease), and his skills as an Assassin; in The Truth, another character relates that “Vetinari moved like a snake”.”

“…general acknowledgement that very little goes on in the city that Vetinari does not know about. Thus, when a visitor stands in audience with the Patrician, they can be assured that Vetinari knows exactly why they’re there, even if the visitor does not.”

I’ll use this last snippet about Vetinari/Tyrant in the next session when the party are escorted to “their” ship and waiting in a neat bundle in the cabin on a bed is all the wizard needs to cast the find familiar spell. This should raise many unnerving questions in the party. For starters the party thought they got away with the stealing of the ship.

There was a doh! moment about the next session. I had forgotten the date that we had agreed to try and make at the end of the previous session. I know, I should have written it down. I remembered we had agreed that the next session would be a Sunday and in February. So my mental faculties were not completely abandoning me.

But I was forced to ask on our Messenger group what date we had agreed. Luckily one or two others had remembered, and replied with the agreed date.

So disaster avoided.

Back to a side project

D&D, RPG

I decided to get back to working on the dungeon based on the tunnels that are under Wisbech.

As D&D dungeon maps go they aren’t as exciting and interesting as the maps you get from professionals. No rooms for starters. They are tunnels. So I’ve had to take some artistic licence and add one or two. And I feel I need to add one or two more.

I’ve also added some sloping parts to the tunnels and flooded an area of one.

As a work in progress it’s coming along and taking shape.

I have spells doing the cross hatch stuff. It’s so boring to do. But the look afterwards is worth it. Look at the bits with it and the bits without.

I like the fact one route round (the longest) is obstacles to over come. While the shorter route is more perilous.

The real challenge has been to make the tunnels “interesting”. Making them lead to a liche lair makes sense to me, without the adventurers brave enough to wander down having to explore room after room. Using traps, obstacles and hazards I think makes the tunnels more “interesting”.

Now to play test it. Oh and more cross hatching.

Useful stuff in the DMG Appendices

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Last night I finally caught up with a YouTube video or two from my subscriptions and one of them was a video by the Nerdarchy guys about hidden gems in the DMG.

The basic summation of this video is that they went through Appendix A – Random Dungeons of the DMG. Which is basically a collection of tables you roll dice for to generate a dungeon.

Naturally as pointed out in the video the appendix is basically split into two parts. The first is about generating the dungeon structure wise, rooms, passages, etc. The second part is about stocking the dungeon. What’s in the rooms and passages.

You can use these tables anytime you want really (as pointed out in the video, well more suggested). In the video the example they give is the tricks table being used to “punish” a party for getting a puzzle wrong. But look at those dungeon dressing tables, particularly those that allow you to enhance descriptions of a room that describe what the senses are detecting like smells and noises. That’s two or three tables I’ll be using a lot more.

But the other Appendices are pretty useful also.

I particularly like the following appendix, Appendix B – Monster Lists. What I love about this appendix is the categorising of monsters by environment. Within each environments table the monsters are sorted by challenge rating. But I’m more interested in what monsters my party are likely to come across as they wander through that hilly forest on their way to the lost mine. Being able to look at this table and chose a monster that is in it’s correct environment is really handy. Although picking a monster that would not naturally be in say a mountainous environment might be a plot point, something for the party to investigate. Why was this monster here?

Appendix C – Maps falls into that Jim Murphy advice territory about collecting maps and having them on hand ready for use in your DM folder. But the advice at the start of this appendix is some of the most sage going “…unless you have something specific in mind, you’re better off conserving your time and energy by repurposing an existing map.” And reenforces that suggestion from Murphy. There are nine maps here for people to use.

I like videos like this. They remind you of the great stuff that is contained within the DMG and other books.

Play, Keep, eBay #2

play,keep,ebay

Welcome to the second post of Play, Keep, eBay. Where I take three games and decide which I’d happily play, keep or add to my collection, and finally which I’d sell on.

In this post I have three deckbuilders that I have played at least once over the past decade.

As you read yesterday deckbuilders are one of Jonathan’s least favourite mechanics. But I love it. I love the shaping your deck, the having to alter your plans based on available cards in the changing trade row, trying to get synergies/combos going between cards. The mechanic is so flexible also. It can be the basis of a co-operative game, or it can be an aggressive competitive game, it can be just competitive. Look at the various games out there that use it as a mechanic.

Play: This was close as I do like Eminent Domain a lot. I like the theme, and it’s unique follow action mechanic. It was nearly the Keep. The expansions add to the game while not over complicating it. This is a nice competitive deckbuilder.

Keep: Probably the easiest and most predictable of my answers for those that know me. It has to be Star Realms. I play this all the time via the app. The physical game is awesome. I love the aggressive nature of the game, it’s quick, cheap, portable. Then all the expansions you can get add variety and new mechanics.

eBay: I think if you have been reading this blog for a looong time you might have guessed this one. You’d need a good memory. But still. It could only be Thunderstone Advance: Numenera. At the time when I played this I wasn’t impressed. It lacked urgency. This game put me off the whole series/system.

Games listed: Eminent Domain, Star Realms, Thunderstone Advance: Numenera

Deckbuilding Taverns

Fenland Gamers, game night

Banter between players is a part of game night. That friendly ribbing between players.

Part of our banter at Fenland Gamers is over the colour yellow (which we will refer to as filthy yellow) and Jonathan’s irrational liking of the colour. It’s his favourite colour to be fair. So often the banter is that when people are selecting who plays what colour normally Jonathan hides yellow up, and says there is no yellow, and then surprisingly when it comes to him selecting a colour he discovers there is yellow after all. Whilst I try and remove yellow without him seeing.

Ok you have to be there. It doesn’t read as funny.

Another source of banter when Jonathan pops out a new game that has deckbuilding as a major mechanic. It’s funny because Jonathan is not a fan of that mechanic.

That’s why playing The Taverns of Tiefenthal (TOT) with him as a learning game last Friday evening was funny.

I think games like TOT are probably the just acceptable form of a deckbuilder that Jonathan will play. And dare I say it possibly enjoy!

I have to say TOT uses deckbuilding nicely as the main mechanic. Add in the dice placement and drafting, with a fixed number of rounds and you have a nice game that gives you some interesting decisions to make each round.

I’d go as far to say you almost don’t feel that you are deckbuilding. There are opportunities to thin the deck of cards, but it’s not an aggressive strategy you could follow. There is not enough time over the limited number of rounds to do that.

Your main decisions on a round are based on the cards you draw for the tavern and the dice you are able to draft. Basically you are either generating money or mugs of beer. You then have to decide how you are going to spend what you have generated. Are you buying tavern cards with the money or upgrading your tavern. Upgrading your tavern gets you a high scoring noble card on top of a more powerful action space. Or are you buying guests with the beer generated?

It is a nice blend of mechanics and decisions. If you asked me I think I prefer this over Clank! And it is miles better than the recent Undaunted: Normandy, where I didn’t think the deckbuilding worked at all.

Our gaming finished with a couple of games of Las Vegas. Still loving this classic.

Games Played: Taverns of Tiefenthal, Las Vegas

A Doctor Who Inspired Adventure!

D&D, RPG

I gave up on Doctor Who just after Capaldi took over. The writing seemed particularly poor in the episodes I had watched. And feedback from my friend Duncan during his tenure as the Doctor who had stuck with the series did not hint that the writing had improved. It was a shame, they had wasted a great actor as the Doctor.

When Jodi Whittaker was named as the new Doctor. I didn’t care that they had swapped the gender of the Doctor. My concern was would she be let down by the writing as Capaldi had been?

Once again my friend Duncan who was proving to have a high tolerance for the badly written show, confirmed that this new Doctor was also being let down by poor scripts. So I’ve stayed away from the show.

That is until I got sent this tweet by my friend yesterday.

Curiosity got the better of me. I watched the episode.

For the record we are talking about Season 12 Episode 3 – Orphan 55

A brief synopsis of the plot (taken off Google) is as follows:

“The Doctor and her companions discover the luxury resort where they are staying is hiding a number of deadly secrets; they must discover why there are ferocious monsters attacking Tranquillity Spa.” (You can read a more in-depth look at the episode here)

Just to get it out of the system before looking at the reason why my friend got me to watch this episode. Wow the writing is worse than I had imagined.

So how would this novice DM make this work in D&D?

Firstly we are looking at a cross between a mystery and a horror alienesq scenario. In fact I could see this working really well in the new Alien RPG or one of the kids on bikes type RPGs out there like Tales from the Loop.

In my campaign the setting would most likely be a remote mysterious island that the party stumble upon. However in other campaigns I could see this working with a remote village, an outpost of some kind.

Which ever is chosen, the location will appear idillic. A paradise.

I’d then have a body discovered, and have the party get roped in investigating the death.

As the investigation progresses I’d maybe start adding more bodies. With it slowly being revealed that the locals know who or what is doing the murders. I’d have witnesses being cagey, giving partial inaccurate descriptions that conflict with each other. Maybe use this as a little misdirection and make the players suspect one or two of the locals. I’d possibly throw in a chase scene where the party nearly catch the killer in the act.

I’d use the surrounded by creatures idea from the episode. These naturally will be the killers. And it will turn out that the occupants of this location knew they had settled in a dangerous location, and that the odd murder was a price the occupants were prepared to pay. This will be the big reveal.

This is when we switch from the mystery part to a more the end of Aliens, the final stand before being completely over run scene. The odds will be overwhelming. After a heroic stand (using a dice countdown to determine when) one of the surviving locals will show the party a secret way out of the location, that will be run as a group challenge to escape.

I agree with my friend the premise is interesting as a possible adventure for an RPG. I’d need to come up with a credible reason why these people had built in such a dangerous location. Something better than the poor Planet of the Apes reveal that was implemented in the episode of Doctor Who.

Will I use the idea and develop it more? I don’t know. I’ve not run a mystery yet. It would require a lot more effort to prepare, particularly researching how to run a mystery in D&D. But the idea has potential.

Last Days: The Big Bang Squad

Last Days, Skirmish

Despite having I think enough scatter terrain to play a game or two of the miniatures skirmish game Last Days: Zombie Apocalypse I still haven’t organised a game yet. Something I need to rectify.

But first I need to put together a couple of squads to play with. Although whoever I play the game with can put together their own squad if they wish. That is the beauty of this game/rule set it uses whatever miniatures you have on hand.

For me that means my Zombicide survivors. Both the ones that come with the game and the promo ones. Naturally the promo survivors are caricatures of the personality whether real or fictional with different names. But it’s pretty obvious who they are meant to be.

Out of the few I have I’ve always had floating around in the back of my head that once I had all the Big Bang Theory cast as survivors I’d like to play a scenario in Zombicide with them. Luckily that was something I managed to do between a Kickstarter or two by CMoN and I don’t recall having to resort to eBay. But it’s possible. The downside is that it’s been a long long time since Zombicide hit the table and I haven’t used the miniatures.

Then Last Days came out, and once more the plan was resurrected. Bring the Big Bang gang to this version of the zombie apocalypse instead.

So here for your amusement and my notes I present The Big Bang Squad.

Oh almost forgot before I get into the meat of this post a little disclaimer. This is my first squad that I’ve created for the game. There are bound to be mistakes. When giving the characters their abilities and keyword I’ve tried to match them up as best as possible whilst hopefully staying true to the fictional character. But please remember the options available in the core rule book are limited and may not map exactly or at all. Especially whilst taking into account any restrictions imposed by the rules.

Scavenger Points To Spend: 100

Scavenger Points Spent: 95

Leader: Dave aka Sheldon

Naturally Dave had to be the leader. Watch any episode of the show, whenever they do anything Sheldon is always the leader, team captain. Ok mainly to shut him up, and they know they will eventually cave in anyway.

There are currently three options for leaders. Obviously Dave is not a merciless thug. I was going to go Professional however you could never describe Dave as athletic. And that is one of the professionals available skills. So I’ve had to go with the Everyday Hero.

THE EVERYDAY HERO – SELFLESS (12 Scavenger Points)

Next I need to pick a refuge for this group of survivors. In the core rule book there are the following options.

Considering the setting of the tv show, and the time spent in the comic book shop, coffee shop, etc. My inclination is to place the squad in The Mall.

Refuge: The Mall

Now I have to recruit the rest of the cast to Dave’s group of survivors. Naturally there are six other characters to add. Which The Mall easily allows me to add.

But I do have to keep in mind the following restrictions:

• I may recruit any number of Characters with the same Keyword as the Leader.

• Up to 50% of the Characters in the Group may have the Neutral Keyword.

• Only 25% or less of the models in the Group may have a different Keyword than the Leader.

For all the character types selected below I’ve tried to avoid ones that have the athletic skill. We are talking about a group of “nerds” here, and that usually isn’t a word used to describe them in the show, despite it being a tired stereotype. I’ve also tried to make sure the ones selected have the academic skill.

The most flexible character type for my needs is the Survivor. Which sadly is the wrong keyword. The nice thing about this character type is I get to pick the skills each character has. This enables the character to feel more like their fictional representation.

SURVIVOR – NEUTRAL (6 Scavenger Points)

Kabir aka Raj: SITUATIONAL AWARENESS, SCAVENGER
Miss Trish aka Bernadette: DIRTY FIGHTER, DOUBLE-TAP
Will aka Howard: ENGINEER, MARTIAL ARTS

CRONY – SELFISH (3 Scavenger Points)
Audrey aka Amy

The options for the same keyword were not ideal. I’m kind of happy with Patrick being a Good Samaritan. However Nikki is probably the worse fit for this. But the other options were worse in my opinion.

GOOD SAMARITAN – SELFLESS (9 Scavenger Points)

Patrick aka Leonard
Nikki aka Penny

I make that a total of 39 Scavenger Points spent on the group. Add in the leader spend my running total is 51 Scavenger Points. Now onto the …

Starting Weapons

There are also some restrictions that need adhering to when selecting the starting weapons and equipment for the group.

  • Each Character in the group must start with at least one weapon with which to defend themselves from hostile groups and the living dead.
  • They may carry up to two Firearms and two Close Quarter Combat weapons (CQC).
  • When you recruit a new character it is the only time you may freely pick weapons and equipment for them.

Here are the starting weapon options available to choose from:

When choosing the characters weapon I’m trying to match the weapon to the miniature. Although for Dave and Audrey the games version of a Molotov cocktail isn’t a starting option.
For weapons like Heavy Blade I’m house ruling that it’s not one weapon of type Heavy Blade, but one machete, one sharpened sword. It makes sense that you will have one of each of those, not just one Heavy Blade weapon.
Dave:

  • Club (nightstick, ASP, bat, crowbar, etc.) *, Scavenger Points 2
  • Revolver*, Scavenger Points 2
  • Medical Supplies *, Scavenger Points 2

Audrey:

  • Surplus SMG, Scavenger Points 4
  • Knife *, Scavenger Points 2

Kabir:

  • Heavy Blade (sharpened sword), Scavenger Points 3
  • Revolver*, Scavenger Points 2
  • Medical Supplies *, Scavenger Points 2

Miss Trish:

  • Semi-Automatic*, Scavenger Points 3
  • Knife *, Scavenger Points 2

Nikki:

  • Magnum*, Scavenger Points 3
  • Surplus Hunting Rifle, Scavenger Points 4
  • Knife *, Scavenger Points 2

Patrick:

  • Heavy Club (hand axe), Scavenger Points 2
  • Revolver*, Scavenger Points 2

Will:

  • Pump-Action Shotgun *, Scavenger Points 5
  • Knife *, Scavenger Points 2

So that’s my Big Bang Squad. I need to create a second group of survivors for them to go up against. For that I have a ready made one figure wise I can use, which is from another CMoN game, The Others. From that game I will be using one of the expansions Sons of Ragnarok which is a Norse Gods inspired take on the biker gang and tv show Sons of Anarchy. But I’ll cover that build in another post.

Update on planning session 6 #1

D&D, RPG, session planning

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.

This post is going to be my to do list for the next session and some thinking aloud.

The magic items that were given to the party as payment in advance for escorting the tribute I took from the YouTube video Five Low-Level Magic Items for Creative Players by the Dungeon Dudes. To save you clicking a link, the items were Bag of Holding, Robe of Useful Items, Immovable Rod, Deck of Illusions, Decanter of Endless Water.

Which means before the next session I need to create item cards for those items. But I also need to work out what patches the robe has. And I’m tempted to use a deck of real cards for the deck of illusions.

The rod and decanter will be very useful for the party on their sea bound travels. But I’m looking forward to seeing how the party will use these items.

A big decision I need to make for the next session is what happens and how I handle the travelling at sea.

I’ve discussed in a previous post a while back the options for handling wilderness travel. Which this basically is. I think my deciding factor should be the duration/distance of the journey.

What makes this one a tough decision is that I’m looking at about a day and a half of travel each way. Which is borderline. At the moment I’m tempted to describe the journey. But it’s also a great opportunity to try out a version of the method described in the Tomb of Annihilation campaign book.

I’m so tempted to have sahuagin attack the party again. But this time they will be attacking with sharks, and one thing I picked up from the Rising Tide book was that they used a craft called a manta made up from the wrecks of other ships.

This is how it is described in the book when one is encountered:

‘The oblong barge used by the sahuagin to travel above or below water was much smaller than most of its kind that the young sailor had heard described… the manta had been cobbled together from ships wrecked at sea or scavenged from shorelines. The boards were stained green with undersea scud from being submerged for so long, but fitted neatly into a wedge shape that made it very maneuverable. It rode low in the water, but the finned shapes of the sahuagin could be seen hunkered down on the benches. They paddled furiously, moving in response to a measured cadence, totally focused on their prey.

Jherek had heard stories about mantas that crewed as many as six hundred sahuagin, but firsthand stories were few and far between. Most men who saw them perished in the sea devils’ attack. From his initial estimate, he guessed that there were forty or fifty sahuagin aboard, easily twice the number of crew aboard Butterfly.” Extract from Rising Tide by Mel Odom, Wizards of the Coast (18 Mar. 2013).

Story wise I could have the sahuagin attack while the party has the tribute. This would mean the party would potentially have to deal with the repercussions of losing the tribute.

If they manage to get the tribute to Hoondarrh’s lair on the isle of Skadaurak. There is some good info from WotC in an old Dragon magazine article (here) that covers Hoondarrh’s lair. In that article it describes this island lair as…

“… a vast complex of subterranean rooms — in fact, a recently-built “dungeon.” It has no less than three shafts where a large red dragon can fly in and out with wings spread; one of them turns back to angle almost straight up into a mountain peak, and there ends in the main treasure cavern.

The rest of the island is honeycombed with trap-filled false lairs. Some of these are even home to a few bold brigands, whom Hoondarrh suffers to live because they amuse him with their furtive diggings, and they have learned not to dare any open assault on his main caverns. From time to time he snatches one up and dumps the man in Baldur’s Gate or Waterdeep or Athkatla, to babble tales of the vast and rich lair that sprawls through the very heart of the isle of Skadaurak, and so lure more adventurers hence.

Though Hoondarrh is not known to possess any sentient servants, his lair seems alive with golems and gargoylelike automatons of various sorts — and even with captive monsters that are kept ravenously hungry.”

So far I’ve not found any maps online for Hoondarrh’s lair. Which means I’m going to have to come up with something map wise myself based on the above description. That’s assuming the party don’t just drop off the tribute at the most convenient spot and make their way back to Mintarn.

So that’s my things to do and thoughts for the next session so far.