Goblin Skulls & Shackles (Pathfinder), Session 1 – We Be Goblins

We be Licktoads! We make raid!
Put the longshanks to the blade!
Burn them up from feet to head,
Make them hurt, then make them dead!
Cut the parents into ham,
Smush the babies into jam,
All the rest in pot get stewed,
We be Licktoads – you be food!

This Pathfinder game will utilize the Skull & Shackles Adventure Path, with a twist–all Goblin PCs! To get players in the mood, we started with We Be Goblins, Paizo’s 2011 Free RPG Day adventure. The PCs are:
Garagornne – Monkey Goblin Ranger
Ent Cleastwood – Goblin Gunslinger
Brodo Faggins – Goblin Rogue
Captain Spack Jarrow – Monkey Goblin Cleric of Besmara

The Licktoad tribe just finished a rousing banishment of a goblin now known only as Scribbleface. He committed the heinous crime of writing things down, so the tribe ran him off, took his stuff, and burned down his house using fireworks they found within. As they embers cooled, the PCs were called to a private audience with Chief Gutwad. The Chief spoke to the PCs directly, proving to them that they were strong and powerful goblins for withstanding the awesome power of his voice (though not as powerful as himself, of course…and maybe not as powerful his major domo, Slorb, either). Because they’re so strong and powerful, he bade them to go into the swamp following a map they found in Scribbleface’s hut. Follow the map and retrieve the rest of Scribbleface’s fireworks stash. He also told them if they found any dogs, make them dead. Any humans, make them dead! Any horses, make them dead. And if they find Lotslegs Eat Goblin Babies Many, maybe they should run. Before they left, though, there was the feast!

The feast was held to help burn off any remaining bad luck caused by Scribbleface’s heresies. A great bonfire was built out of the remains of Scribbleface’s hut. Food, fermented cider apples, and challenging dares were the order of the evening. Members of the Licktoad tribe heckled the PCs, daring them to very acts of foolishness, and while no one was able to dance with Squealy Nord, Spack Jarrow was able to eat a whole bag of bull slugs really quick (and didn’t even get sick doing so!), Brodo survived the Rusty Earbiter without losing any bits, and Garagornne successfully Hid so she wouldn’t Get Clubbed. For these impressive feats of derring-do, Chief Gutwad granted them the use of several items from his personal stash: Gorge of Gluttons (a Dogslicer +1, Horse Bane), the Chief’s Personal Very Useful Robe That Is Useful (Robe of Useful Items w/a three-legged turtle, a ladder, & a bullhorn), and a Ring That Lets You Climb Real Good (ring of climbing). He told them they could use them, but better return them, or else!

In the morning, they headed off into Brinestump Marsh. Fortunately, they were suffering no ill effects from neither the fermented cider apples nor the bull slugs. Otherwise, they might have walked right into the Lotslegs Eat Goblin Babies Many’s webs! They noticed the webs and managed to get the drop on the spider, despite Brodo’s feelings that they should NOT engage the spider. Fortunately, Lotslegs’s reputation was somewhat inflated and they were able to easily dispatch the nasty beast. They followed tracks back to her lair and looted goblin and human bodies within, gaining many new shiny objects, some old candy, and a few potions, as well!

They continued following the map until they found an old shipwreck surrounded by a rickety fence. According to the map (which Garagornne noted was NOT to scale; they had walked way more than the length of her first knuckle). Brodo climbed up a tree while Garagornne and Ent snuck around the fence to the far side, and Spack Jarrow climbed the fence near the tree Brodo was climbing. Garagornne and Ent found the entrance to the makeshift compound, where a nasty horse awaited them! The horse was no match for Ent’s musket and Garagornne’s bow and fell quickly. They climbed the gangplank, dislodging a wasp’s nest. Two dogs chained to a mast started barking.

The battle was joined! The dogs proved tougher than the horse and during the fight, another goblin with a giant frog animal companion and dog emerged. Spack Jarrow recognized her as the vile and wicked Vorka! She screamed obscenities at them, threatening to suck their eyes out through their noses (and other obscene things with their skulls after gouging out their eyes). She walked up the second mast and summoned a swarm of spiders to hinder Garagornne. Brodo charged across the rigging, knocking Vorka off the mast (bull rush, FTW!). The other goblins fell upon her and cut her to pieces. They killed her little (not so little, they were goblin-sized) dogs, too! The frog tried to flee, it’s master dead, but was cut down, mid hop.

Naturally, they looted the ship, found the fireworks, and set fire to the wreckage (just in case). They returned to the village, hailed as heroes! Chief Gutwad offered the hand of his daughter, fearsomely corpulent and ferociously lusty Gupy Wartbits, to Brodo Faggins, made Ent Cleastwood the Head Village Watcher, made Spack Jarrow the Overseer of Village Stabbings, and made Garagornne the Boss of Big Fire.

And there was much rejoicing.

Too much rejoicing…a booze cart ridden by a human was raided and things got fuzzy after that. The PCs have vague recollections of being caged and carted away…but to where? Why was the world rocking? And did they remember to give the chief his magical items back?

We Be Goblins turned out to be a pretty good adventure with which to kick off this campaign. It started off with some role-playing and skill checks, and moved to combats which were increasingly complex. It was also relatively short. Everyone seemed to have a good time with their goblin characters once they got into the right mindset (it always takes a while with a new character).

The next session will be a Savage Worlds one-shot, run by Brodo’s player. After that, we kick off the Skull & Shackles Adventure Path proper, with The Wormwood Mutiny!

Starilaskur – Eberron Game session 6

When we last left our band of heroes, they had just beaten the gnolls at the fort, having lost Wycliffe and Zarna to it’s cruel claw-claw-beak-your-face-off attack.

After having narrowly defeated the owlbear and its gnoll keepers, Vistra Kodiak and Theirastra searched the fort. Cries for help came from the prisoner pits near the back of the fort. In one of the pits, was a bedraggled-looking human. They broke open the spiked cage door holding him in and helped him out of the pit. He introduced himself as Mongrel Bo, Minstrel Extraordinare.

While Mongrel Bo helped them load their dead & the recovered Conductor Stones onto the cart, they questioned him as to how he came to be captured by the gnolls. He told them he had been wandering outside Starilaskur, looking for a valley in which the folk who lived there were experiencing disturbed, dreamless, restless sleep. He hoped if he could not solve their problem, he could at least sing them a lullabye.

After hooking up the gnolls’ horses to the cart and opening the gate, the three headed back to the Lightning Rail. When they arrived several hours later, Seraphina and Mercutio introduced them to a dwarven runepriest from the Mror Holds, Rurin, who’d been on the train with them and helped them guard the train against further attack while the others tracked the gnolls and the stolen Conductor Stones.

The Lightning Rail personnel repaired the track as our heroes buried Zarna. They believed Wycliffe could be repaired once they arrived in Starilaskur. By the time the solemn ceremonies were over, the Lighting Rail was ready to depart!

The next day, they arrived in Starilaskur and set about trying to find The Broken Forge. When they found the place, they found a warforged stoking the fires. He acknowledged that he was Clockwork and accepted the strongbox they delivered. He asked the party if they knew what was contained within. When they told him they did not, he said “That daft old man will not fool me again,” and threw the strongbox into the fire.

Clockwork indicated that he could repair Wycliffe and that he had a use for our heroes after all, to follow a map he had and retrieve an item called the Everflame. When questioned about why he seemed to be antagonistic towards Master Yorel, Clockwork became agitated, denied knowing what they were talking about and dismissed them. They decided to decline Clockwork’s help with Wycliffe and took their warforged companion to a temple for a resurrection ritual, concerned about the implications that Clockwork had access to a Creation Forge.

Our intrepid band of adventurers discussed what to do as Wycliffe recovered from his ordeal. They did not notice that Mongrel Bo seemed to have wandered off on his own after arriving in the city. They decided they would seek out this Everflame but return it instead to Master Yorel and warn him of Clockwork’s hostility.

The map indicated the Everflame lay some days’ journey to the east, so they set off in that direction, following a trail through the forest. During their journey, they were waylaid by a group of orc bandits, but handily defeated them. Shortly after the battle, they came across a pond, and the corpse of another bandit who’d been bitten multiple times by a large serpent and apparently died of those wounds. They returned to the trail as it began to rain.

Thoroughly drenched, they found a small valley indicated on Clockwork’s map. At the bottom, set into the side of a small hill, they found the entrance to a crypt marked with a rune Rurin identified as “Everflame.” Night crept in as they prepared to seek shelter from the rain and explore the crypt, searching for the Everflame.

And so begins another treasure hunt. I’ve started using Obsidian Portal for campaign notes & tracking. This campaign is called Treasure Hunting for Profit and Glory. Fear not, treasured readers: I will still post the adventure logs here. I’m looking forward to the next couple of segments. I had been floundering around a bit, unsure of what I wanted to do and where I wanted to take the campaign, but now, I have a clear vision and it can only mean good things.

You’re Not Paranoid if Everyone Really Is Out to Get You

WARNING: If you’re attending Gary Con V and intend to sign up for one of my Paranoia games, STOP. READING. NOW.

Seriously, this session basically served as a playtest for the adventure I’ll be running at Gary Con V. You’ll see it in the event catalog as DGS Presents: Paranoia – Clones in SPAAAAACE! (I may have the number of As and !s wrong).

Also, if you’re are not security clearance Blue or higher, reading the previous two paragraphs, except the words “Warning”, “Stop”, “Reading,” and “Now” constitutes treason. Please report to the nearest suicide booth for summary execution.

As with many missions, this one started with an alert coming to the Troubleshooters as they went about their pointless lives. They were summoned to Mission Briefing Room 45C1ENCE. Immediately. Naturally, being loyal citizens of The Computer, the complied. Our Troubleshooters for this misadventure were Wand-R-BRA, Schwartz-R-NLD, and Docked-R-HOO. True, it was a lighter team than normal, but The Computer was confident they would be able to succeed. The Troubleshooters were surprised to find the mission briefing was being conducted by The Computer itself:

Welcome, Troubleshooters! You have been selected to volunteer [VOLUNTEERING IS MANDATORY] to establish the First Alpha Complex Lunar Annex. This exciting mission will secure your place as Heroes of Alpha Complex [use of titles not authorized]. Please report to R&D for training and mission details. Alpha Complex Scienticians will provide you with your equipment and your Mandatory Bonus Duty Assignments. Have a pleasant day!

No one died during the mission briefing, so they proceeded to R&D. The lead scientician introduced them to the most valuable piece of equipment, the heavily-modified Flybot H4L-9000. (I described it as a VW-microbus welded to a quad-arrangement of semi-truck cargo carriers). They were given experimental equipment (testing new equipment is fun and not at all dangerous, probably): Communist Detection Spray, a Clone-Portable Quantum Tunneling Device Prototype, aka Portal Gun, a Cone Pistol (one-handed cone rifle), and a Chrono Gun. In addition, the R&D Scientician informed them the cargo carriers contained everything they needed to establish a base colony on the surface of the moon, as well as additional weapons, should they encounter any natives or Commie Mutant Traitors.

Since I waited a week again, I’ve forgotten several details, so I’ll sum up: They were barely out of Earth’s atmosphere when someone was accused of treason and an explosive weapon was fire, blowing out the windows of the flybot. Naturally, at least one clone was blown out into space. The other two died shortly afterwards of asphyxiation, since a voice-operated interface cannot be operated without air to transmit the command of “re-pressurize” once the window shutters closed. Additional clones in the cargo area were activated and several more died in the week that followed as they flew to the moon. Once they landed, the Big Green Button that activated the colony was pressed and it inflated quite well. The troubleshooters even found some spacesuits to protect them from the hard vacuum of the lunar surface. They discovered another colony on the moon, however, one flying the Hammer & Sickle of the Commie flag! Preparations were made to wipe out the rival colony when Schwartz-R-NLD-2 had the brilliant idea of shooting a relatively flat surface of the moon with the Portal Gun, then shooting the top of the Commie Dome, suffocating all within (if I am not mistaken, that player had not played Portal 2). Poor Docked-R-HOO was on clone 5 by then. But they were victorious…and stuck on the moon. Perhaps next year, we will revisit the Troubleshooters at the First Alpha Complex Lunar Annex.

Ah, good old Paranoia. Always good for a few laughs when D&D just ain’t cuttin’ it or too many people fail to show up for the game. I prefer the 2nd edition of the game to any versions that came before or after. It’s a very simple d20-below-target-number resolution system and that’s just about it. That’s all it needs. Paranoia isn’t about DPS builds or skill monkeys: it’s about surviving in a world where EVERYONE is out to get you, including the GM. If the GM plays his/her cards right, he/she doesn’t even need to do anything. Just put the players in absurd situations & dangerous environments and let them kill each other with impunity. It’s quite simple, really. In all, 3 players, 6 deaths. That’s a 200% mortality rate! Actually, that’s pretty low by Paranoia standards. I’m confident when I run it at Gary Con V with a full table of 6 players, I’ll boost that number up to 350% – 400%.

Now, on to my 2013 plans. I intend to wrap up my D&D 4E Eberron game within the next 4-6 sessions (give or take, depending on how long it takes the PCs to get through the challenges before them…e.g. depending on how much gaming we actually do as opposed to sitting around the table BSing). 4E as a system never really floated my boat, and my latest attempt to run with it just isn’t doing it for me. In retrospect, I could’ve just gone with the Pathfinder Basic Set for my new player (my wife) and I think things would have progressed just as well as far as her learning the system goes. Game prep has not been terribly enjoyable, even with the tools WotC provides on their website and the type of fantasy 4E encourages just isn’t my cup of tea. That’s not a judgement on the quality of D&D 4E, it’s just a statement of preference. Also, there was a time when I greatly enjoyed game prep and could spend hours and hours perfecting encounters and writing detailed environments and that time has not returned to my life. I was single then with no other activities requesting portions of my time.

After the 4E campaign is wrapped up, I plan to  start a Pathfinder Adventure Path campaign, using the Skull & Shackles Adventure Path. I summed up this game to my players in two words: Goblin. Pirates. It was met with some enthusiasm by those who attended the Paranoia game. Those who did not are either hearing about this for the first time by reading this blog post or will hear about it at the next game, this coming Friday. I have not decided if I’m going to jump right into Pathfinder or spend a few sessions with another game as a palate cleanser, as it were. A few one-offs along with a group character generation session might do us good.

Group character generation is interesting. I know there are a lot of players who don’t like this as it involves a lot of sitting around not playing, but I think it’s very valuable. Even with e-mail, I’ve seen groups composed of Fytor the Fighter, Fietor the Fighter, Figh’tor the Fighter, and Roger the Shrubber, despite the players supposedly conferring with one another over e-mail about how to create a balanced group (the group balance thing is one reason I’m starting to like rules-light non-D&D games more than D&D). I’ve also been trying to encourage my players to think of the relationships between their characters. How does Character A know Character B? How do Characters C & D know A & B? It helps prevent groups composed of Lone Wolf Anti-Social Loners from having to adventure together when there is no logical reason for them to even have a beer together. It prevents situations like goodly knights finding themselves in the same group as a decidedly neutral worshipper of the god of murder/assassins.

The above is parody and not meant to be a transcript from an actual play session. It’s just the type of thing that I’ve heard of happening when characters are created in a vacuum and the players still want to play together despite their characters not really having any reason to hang out together, but they do so anyway because it’s people playing a game. I believe the term is “verisimilitude.” Of course, if all the PC Pirates are going to be Pathfinder Goblins, that’s a whole different brand of anarchy and mayhem. Golarian will never be the same.

On The Rails – Eberron Game Session 4

After a brief foray to Gamma Terra, we return to Eberron for the continuation of our regularly scheduled D&D game.

When last we left our intrepid…heroes…they were on their way to Sharn, having cured a town of a magical plague despite their best efforts at leaving the townsfolk to their uncertain fates. Master Yorel greeted them with sacks of gold after receiving the Coat of Eyes and bade his  Acquisition Experts to standby for another assignment. A few days later, he presented them with round-trip Lighting Rail passes to Starilaskur. Their new mission was to transport a strongbox from Sharn to a colleague of his at The Broken Forge, Clockwork. In addition to the money he gave them upon bringing him the coat of eyes, he gave them each an additional 250 GP for expenses and sent them on their way.

The first leg of the trip, from Sharn to Wroat, passed uneventfully. What apparently transpired in some of the cabins is best left for certain texts of a more…blue…nature. They stretched their legs at Wroat, and were surprised that no one accosted them or tried to rob them or tried to hire them and boarded the train again. The next day, while on the long leg of the trip between Wroat and Starilaskur, the…debaucheries…were interrupted by armed men demanding money from the passengers. Our intrepid heroes would have none of it and slaughtered them in hallway of their coach. The screams of the passengers in the other cars caught their interest, but they decided to climb to the top of their coach to survey situation. Mounted Gnolls ran alongside the train and more bandits, humans and gnolls advanced upon them. As they fought back the ones on top of the Lightning Rail, the conveyance came to a halt. Once the gnolls on top of the train were dealt with and the mounted ones fled, our heroes questioned the Lighting Rail driver about why they stopped. Someone had stolen enough of the conductor stones guiding the Lighting Rail, that the coaches could not continue without derailing.

Track led away from the route, tracks which suggested someone stole the conductor stones deliberately to halt the Lightning Rail. Our heroes followed the trail into the hills, making sure their strongbox was secure and well-guarded…

It seems like nothing happened, but 4E combat takes a lot of time. Plus, we did slip into a lot of tangents. They were entertaining, but tangents, nonetheless. Plus, a few players don’t have DDI accounts, so some of the characters had to be updated prior to the game on my PC and that caused us to get a late start. It’s the biggest downside I’m seeing to this 4E game. I don’t feel right asking everyone to have a DDI subscription, so I may start asking people to e-mail what changes they want made to their characters so I can go ahead and make them and print them before the game starts. Ultimately, I’m finding the reliance on the electronic tools for tracking characters to be more of a hindrance than a boon, though I do like the DM’s tools (particularly the Encounter Builder, even if it isn’t as up-to-date as I’d like).

I’m also starting to get a feel about what will motivate my group, in game, and I’m having to adjust my playstyle accordingly. My attempt at the last session to allow them a chance to play the role of the hero went over like a lead balloon (they wanted to leave the town to its fate and were very reluctant to determine the cause of the plague). Clearly, I should have made more clear my ideas that they would be playing the Heroes in this game. Ah well. These things happen and I’ll just adjust my expectations; it’s no biggie.

Also, I have observed that I feel very RUSTY when running adventures of my own design. When I brought this group together, it was after, essentially, a three year hiatus from GMing. Sure, I ran a few games at conventions in the interim, but those were one shots and mostly Paranoia (which is MUCH easier to run/play than D&D). When I started again, I was running pre-made adventures. Clearly, my skills have atrophied a bit as I am not really comfortable writing my own adventures for D&D anymore. I don’t have a problem with other systems, like Star Wars (d6), or Paranoia, so I wonder if I’m just not feeling the DM vibe anymore. Or maybe, I’m just out of practice. Maybe since D&D 4E isn’t my favorite variation of the game, I’m not as into it as I could be. It could be several things or something I haven’t thought of yet. One thing I may try is to adapt a pre-written adventure to fit into this Eberron campaign and see how that feels. Maybe I’m just feeling the crunch of working, trying to spend time with my family, trying to write books to publishing, AND write stuff to GM. Nevertheless, I’m committed to trying to provide an entertaining game for my friends, so I shall soldier on.

A Detour to Gamma Terra

Since Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving, aka Nov. 23) was a day I knew not everyone would be available for gaming, I planned a different game than our regularly scheduled D&D game. I decided it would be a good chance to try Gamma World. A few folks on Twitter suggested that I set the game in a mall and somehow work in references to Black Friday, so I did. And since I’m hopelessly behind in updating this post, the actual game write-up will be brief…also, some names may have changed since I can’t remember exactly what Gamma Speak I used now…except The Walma. It’s always THE WALMA.

In the world of Gamma Terra, Black Free Day is the day after the Feast of Hallothankwanzamassukah. It is thought to be an orgiastic celebration of looting and consumerism at a mystical place known as The Walma. After finding out the PCs were not hungover or dead from the previous evening’s celebrations, the village elder sent them in search of The Walma.

After a rambling, Simpsons-homage-filled set of directions*, the chosen villagers headed out of the relative safety of ‘Tain Squa and into the wilderness. The directions were surprisingly accurate and they made exceptionally good use of the environment to defeat some mutated horrors which sought to eat them. A battle was raging at The Walma when they arrived between various groups of scavengers including Porkers, Badders, and mutants. They decided not to risk a frontal engagement and circled around looking for other entrances**.

They found a group of dabbers (they’re mutated bipedal raccoons) trying to break into a large overhead door marked UT  ERVI. One extremely intimidating encounter later, the PCs were trying to break into a large overhead door marked UT ERVI while the dabbers were running for the hills. They broke into The Walma, found a few wheeled carts and proceeded to loot the store out from under the battle raging outside…except for the guys in the canned good aisle who were determined to make the PCs pay in BLOOD for their bounty.

While it was a fairly close fight with some friendly fire injuries and a lot of collateral damage, the PCs won the day and returned victorious to ‘Tain Squa with their Hallothankwanzamassukah bounty.

Everyone seemed to have a really good time with this game. A few players commented that the preferred the simplified system of Gamma World to D&D 4E (Savage Worlds…here we come!). I really liked the wacky amalgamation of the real world and the fantastic, especially since I could throw in post-apoc tropes as well as cram in Borderlands-like weapons (which will see more play in future games) and it all fits because: GAMMA WORLD. The combat encounters weren’t as good as I wanted because I was counting on two hours of prep time that I didn’t get when a guest player showed up two hours early.

And, I got to use the toy cars I bought for my ill-fated Gen Con Atomic Highway/Fallout game, so that’s a plus. I think Gamma World will be my go-to Alt game while we’re playing D&D 4E. Once the Eberron game wraps-up, I may switch to Pathfinder, though, ’cause I really want to run some adventure paths and my Rise of the Runelords Deluxe Collector’s Edition is here (it was my reward to myself for working through my vacation this summer…and getting a bonus for doing so). On the other hand, as a GM, I like rules-light systems more and more these days and Pathfinder is anything but rules-light. I can do rules-heavy as a player, but as a GM, game-prep for rules-heavy systems is more like work than enjoyment, and I get PAID for work. I hope prep for an adventure path won’t be so bad since I won’t have to write up every encounter and plot point myself.

I think I actually enjoy running this genre (or at least a more modern genre) of game to Fantasy. With fantasy, I’m worried about anachronisms when I have to ad lib, and that really makes me have to think too hard when things go off the rails. In a more futuristic or modern setting, I can just go off on a Simpsons/Futurama-inspired ramble and it fits. The comic tangent in the directions just wouldn’t fit in the with the tone I like in my fantasy, but works with Gamma World. Maybe I need to stick with pre-written adventures for Fantasy and when I need to stretch my creative legs play games more modern/sci-fi in tone.

* “Follow Dry Gulch until you find that big, rotten tree. Hopefully, it hasn’t fallen down yet. Turn left and you should see a big elevated road. You know that road use to take you south to the river. Of course, walking, that would take you days. You’d just followed that elevated road all the way until you got to the big river, cross it, then you could keep going south until you practically hit the ocean. Why, I bet that was at least a week away. Maybe more, hell, I don’t know, I never went there. I went down three days, though. It gets hilly and I heard the hills used to be covered in trees what wouldn’t eat you. We’d tie an onion to our belts, ‘cause that was the style of the time, plus, it kept the trees from eating you, at least, my old man always said it would. Of course, he thought you could stick fat people with a pin and they’d pop like a balloon…”

** The area they traveled was based on the area in which we live. So, to prevent meta-gamey cheese, I totally burned Gander Mountain to the ground***. They already had enough guns anyway.

*** For those of you from the U.S. Government who are spying on my blog, I’m talking about a tabletop GAME. I did NOT engage in any domestic terrorism. I have better things to do with my life. I suggest you do the same and go out and catch real criminals and stop spying on the people who pay your salary. Yes, I’m talking about you, George. YOU. The one in Fairfax.  Also, you have a spot on your tie. Sometimes, the dry cleaner can get those out, but usually you have to buy a new tie. Take some pride in your appearance, dude.

Fourth Session Report – The Isle of Dread

After a month hiatus due to attendance, we return to the Isle of Dread…only I didn’t feel like playing or socialized due to work-related stress, so it took me a while to get my brain in the right mindset, even after the players arrived. Application of homemade Devil’s Food birthday cake helped. Yes, it was my birthday. 30 years ago (not to the day), I started playing D&D with the Tom Moldvay-revised Basic Set (that’s the magenta box w/Erol Otus cover art). My first D&D-related purchase was the Expert Set which included X1: The Isle of Dread. Fitting, then, that we should be playing that adventure on my 38th birthday.

We rejoin our would-be, treasure-seeking heroes as they prepared to cross the rope bridge from the high terrain of the island near the river gorge to the central mesa. The group chose to send the lightest member over the bridge first, so the elf, Wikki Swiftwind (finally feeling better) across. He did not fall to a horrible death three thousand feet below, so the rest of the group made their way across the bridge. It was then they noticed that Finias Jinx was no where to be found. Since he had a habit of wandering off, then showing up at opportune times, they pressed onward.

The top of the mesa was flat and mostly featureless. A few stands of trees lay off, miles in the distance. Directly ahead of them was a high ridge. Seeing no settlements, they set off for the nearest forested area. Several miles of banter later, they arrived at the edge of the forest. The sun was setting, so they decided to make camp while Wikki hunted for meat. While Wikki was only marginally successful, bringing back a brace of coneys, they were able to supplement the meat with foraged nuts, berries, and mushrooms. They set up a watch rotation, hoping for an uneventful night.

With the exception of a pair of large, hairy elephant-like creatures stomping around at night (mastodons), the evening did indeed pass uneventfully. Soon after breaking camp, they found the far edge of the forest; apparently, it was smaller than it appeared when they first arrive on the mesa. At Kilos’s suggestion, the group headed toward the ridge that appeared to be in the center of the mesa. After another few hours, they found their way barred by a small river. Fortunately, it was fairly easy to ford. Lorelei took some time to attempt to spear some fish to supplement their rapidly-dwindling supplies. Her first try wasn’t entirely successful, but the giant bass she was attempt to spear turned and attacked her! She and Kilos made short work of the huge fish and the fresh fish was enjoyed by all.

The ridge loomed over them now, a jagged mountain range which was far larger than it appeared from the rope bridge at the edge of the mesa. There was some debate whether they should attempt to circumnavigate it or just climb over it. At the prodding of the dwarves, the intrepid explorers chose to climb over it. The going was slow and the terrain treacherous. Several times, falls were averted only by the strength of the other party members. The cold and darkness crept in on them as they climbed. Twelve hours later, they reached the summit. In the pitch blackness, they saw only twinkling firelight far, far away. They made camp, hoping nothing would choose to eat them this far up. Wikki found a spell in the spell book they recovered from the haunted mansion that allowed them to make the fire from their torches shed much less light (and use less fuel) and cast it directly from the book, destroying the pages in the process*.

When dawn broke, our heroes could see they stood on the edge of what appeared to be a caldera. They could make out a small village at the edge of a lake. The lake covered about half of the bottom of the caldera and contained an island. Once again, they began climbing. The descent, while not easier than the ascent, proved shorter. The air grew warmer the further away from the peaks they descended and lush jungle vegetation again began to cover all surfaces. By the time they reached the bottom, dusk was once again falling. They approached the walled village, wondering what awaited within…

* An oft-used house rule for Basic D&D and AD&D wherein magic-users can cast directly from spell books, but it burns the spell like using a scroll. The spell in question was “Affect Normal Fires” which is actually an AD&D spell, not a Basic D&D spell.

There won’t be a Doctor StrangeRoll update for June 1st, as I will be out of town on “vacation.” It’s in quotes because I’ll have to spend a portion of each day working remotely. Hopefully, I won’t have to spend ALL day every day working. That would suck.

Upcoming Game Dates

If you think my updating is sporadic, it’s not really. We do play every two weeks, but sometimes it takes me a few days to write the update.

May 4th – Star Wars: The Old Republic – Galaxy at Peace (’cause it’s May 4th – Star Wars Day – May the Fourth Be With You!)

May 18th – Doctor StrangeRoll D&D Basic featuring a brand new Geek Chic table and birthday cake (the cake is NOT a lie; it’s my birthday)

June 1st – No game; I’ll be on vacation and won’t actually be at my gaming table. My beautiful gaming table. It is…precious to me… [gollum gollum]

June 15th – There will be a game, what it is will be determined by attendance.

June 29th – The game will likely be the one we didn’t play on June 15th.

The Star Wars game is going to be a mini-campaign, probably no more than 5 or 6 sessions, I think, depending on how much we avoid conversational tangents, Monty Python references, and talking about Doctor Who instead of gaming. Once the Star Wars game is wrapped up, one of my players has volunteered to run some Doctor Who for us (the new one by Cubicle 7, not the old FASA game), so I’ll play that (though still provide updates on the game) while I prep a post-apocalyptic game for our alternate sessions, probably Gamma World or Atomic Highway (Fallout flavor), depending on what the group prefers. By then, it might be time for me to play test some of the adventures I’ll be running at Gen Con. I won’t post any spoilers about those here, though, just in case anyone who plays in them at the convention reads this blog.

How I Got Started

While I put together a gaming group and my gaming room, there actually isn’t much to talk about regarding the old adventures I might run, since I don’t know which I might actually run. I can talk about how I got started playing role-playing games.

It was around 1982 (yikes, 30 years ago!). One of my friends rode the bus with me. His mother was a nurse who worked the early shift, so she’d drop him off at our house on her way to work. As I recall, the bus didn’t show up until about 8 AM in those days and he’d get there at 6 AM. I wasn’t a rude kid, so I got up early enough to spend that time with him. One day, he told me about this game to which one of the kids in his neighborhood introduced him. He showed it to me. It was in a magenta box and had a picture of a warrior and wizard facing off against a dragon. The game? Dungeons & Dragons.

I was hooked.

My recollection is we played it every morning and whenever we got together on the weekends (I’m sure it was actually more infrequent than that). We tried to get all our friends in on it. As soon as I saved up enough allowance, I ran out and looked for my own copy. This was in the days where you could find D&D in toy stores, hobby shops, and even grocery stores (I think I bought my copy of Monster Manual II at Kroger).

I couldn’t find a Basic Set right away, or thought I didn’t need it since we had his, so I bought the Expert Set. Eventually, and the time scale is really fuzzy after 30 years, I bought my own copy of the Basic Set once the Library copy (yeah, we had the D&D Basic Set in our Public Library) I kept checking out started to fall apart. The Basic Set I have pictured was out of print though, so I ended up with the Mentzer Revision (the red box upon which WotC based their new starter set for D&D 4E).

Purists will say I was mixing and matching two editions, but there was really so few differences in play between the two, we never noticed. In fact, we also started buying up the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons books and mixing those in, as well. On some level, I understood they were different games, but it all looked the same to me. I didn’t understand things like encumbrance or even how experience points worked. I interpreted 100 XP + 1/HP to mean that your character gain hit points from defeating certain monsters.

You know what? We had a hell of a lot of fun playing those games we didn’t fully understand.

To this day, I find the artwork of Erol Otus and Larry Elmore to be far more evocative than the modern D&D artists. There was something weird, something organic about Erol Otus’s stuff, something fantastic.

Over the years, I switched to AD&D fully, but I still bought the D&D stuff. I don’t think I ever played an elf or a dwarf as a class once I figured out AD&D, but looking back, I appreciate the elegant simplicity in those rules. I treasure my copy of the D&D Rules Cyclopedia and wish I had a second copy so when I start this project in earnest, I could have a table copy. I thank my lucky stars I was able to get a PDF version of it before WotC pulled the plugged on all their PDFs. It’s been invaluable for adventure prep; I ran a Rules Cyclopedia D&D game last year at Gary Con with 6 enthusiastic players.

* None of them had signed up for the game. All my per-registered players were no shows. When these guys saw I was running basic D&D, they became excited and called their friends over to join in. Frank Mentzer even stopped by and watched a round of combat. I can only imagine what was going through his mind to watch a table of men play the game he and his friend Gary created so long ago.

Now, thirty years after I started to play D&D, I’m preparing to embark upon a new campaign, with the same (or nearly so) game I played then.  It’s going to be epic.