I think artist extraordinaire Wally Wood, in summing up what is in 'His World', encompasses pretty much what we all feel our pulp fantasy worlds to be...Wally Wood: My World
Click on the comic pages to enlarge and read. Great Stuff!
Friday, September 17, 2010
These Are Our Worlds Too...
I think artist extraordinaire Wally Wood, in summing up what is in 'His World', encompasses pretty much what we all feel our pulp fantasy worlds to be...Wally Wood: My World
Click on the comic pages to enlarge and read. Great Stuff!
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Resources for you Homebrewers!
Homebrewed Sandbox campaigning can be a lot of fun and can keep any GM on their toes (the best place for any GM to be!). Spread out over the interwebs are tons of invaluable resources to help you with creating your Home-brewed campaigns. Here's a few that I've found very useful!
How to make a Fantasy Sandbox
Where to even begin you ask? Right here with Rob Conely's useful step by step guide with enough information to fill the heads of a room full of Ettins
Hexographer
Great hex mapping software. Pay version and free online app available.
Dungeon Generator
Need that quick one-off or multiple dungeon level complex and no time to create one the old fashion way? Try your luck here!
Meatshields
Why take the time to roll up hirelings when they're just gonna get sliced and diced anyway?
Fantasy Name Generator
Coming up with names is a challenge for most any GM. This one has categories for books and tomes, ships, cities, castles, wilderness and many others for different settings. A must have for any Homebrewer! While your there check out the rest of the Donjon site!
Updated: Additional links from our posted comments:
http://www.chaoticshiny.com/
http://nine.frenchboys.net/
http://www.seventhsanctum.com/contests.php
http://www.squid.org/rpg-random-generator
How to make a Fantasy Sandbox
Where to even begin you ask? Right here with Rob Conely's useful step by step guide with enough information to fill the heads of a room full of Ettins
Hexographer
Great hex mapping software. Pay version and free online app available.
Dungeon Generator
Need that quick one-off or multiple dungeon level complex and no time to create one the old fashion way? Try your luck here!
Meatshields
Why take the time to roll up hirelings when they're just gonna get sliced and diced anyway?
Fantasy Name Generator
Coming up with names is a challenge for most any GM. This one has categories for books and tomes, ships, cities, castles, wilderness and many others for different settings. A must have for any Homebrewer! While your there check out the rest of the Donjon site!
Updated: Additional links from our posted comments:
http://www.chaoticshiny.com/
http://nine.frenchboys.net/
http://www.seventhsanctum.com/contests.php
http://www.squid.org/rpg-random-generator
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Rolling Dice With The Wife
As I mentioned in my previous post, my wife Christy joined us for her first "real" table RPG session. You may recall that we had played a couple of solo sessions over a year ago and that left her a bit unsure of how the game actually worked. I guided her as much as possible but a solo session with an inexperienced player isn't really a good intro to the game.
So our last session she joined us at the table. Again, she was a bit unsure on this whole role-playing thing but over all I felt she had a more positive experience than negative. Right after the session she actually drew a portrait of her hermaphrodite dwarven fighter Maudlin (with a CHA of 5!). Whether she continues playing or not, how awesome was that?
So last night she joined us once again. In fact she got to the table early and read through her character sheet and the Home Brew house-rules before the others arrived, asking questions here and there.
This session was a better slice of your classic game session as there were some interactions with the city-folk of Caladan as well as a good creepy dungeon crawl with monsters to be slain and treasure to be had (recap to be posted shortly). The other players helped fill Christy in on some of the back stories and past encounters that had relevance to the sessions events as they popped up. There were good examples of how the players interacted together to solve problems and accomplish tasks. Overall a perfect session to really get a feel for the game with the usual laughs and table talk, of course. Cudos to my players for making her feel welcome and answering some of her questions and guiding her play a bit and congrats to Christy for giving it another go!
Afterwards she said she enjoyed the session and said that she pictured some of the events, especially with the hoard of crypt crawlers, just like scenes in a movie. Was she jumping around screaming 'Oh my god that was freaking' awesome! When do we play next?". No (I mean, come on, lets be realistic). But I think she got a good picture of what the game is about. Christy is still trying to get the hang of fitting in with game play and running Maudlin.I say only more sessions will help with that!
Here's hoping that Maudlin's adventures continue.
So our last session she joined us at the table. Again, she was a bit unsure on this whole role-playing thing but over all I felt she had a more positive experience than negative. Right after the session she actually drew a portrait of her hermaphrodite dwarven fighter Maudlin (with a CHA of 5!). Whether she continues playing or not, how awesome was that?So last night she joined us once again. In fact she got to the table early and read through her character sheet and the Home Brew house-rules before the others arrived, asking questions here and there.
This session was a better slice of your classic game session as there were some interactions with the city-folk of Caladan as well as a good creepy dungeon crawl with monsters to be slain and treasure to be had (recap to be posted shortly). The other players helped fill Christy in on some of the back stories and past encounters that had relevance to the sessions events as they popped up. There were good examples of how the players interacted together to solve problems and accomplish tasks. Overall a perfect session to really get a feel for the game with the usual laughs and table talk, of course. Cudos to my players for making her feel welcome and answering some of her questions and guiding her play a bit and congrats to Christy for giving it another go!
Afterwards she said she enjoyed the session and said that she pictured some of the events, especially with the hoard of crypt crawlers, just like scenes in a movie. Was she jumping around screaming 'Oh my god that was freaking' awesome! When do we play next?". No (I mean, come on, lets be realistic). But I think she got a good picture of what the game is about. Christy is still trying to get the hang of fitting in with game play and running Maudlin.I say only more sessions will help with that!
Here's hoping that Maudlin's adventures continue.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Session XXI: Them!
So our last session was a bit interesting for three reasons.
One, we attempted to record the audio of the gameplay. Why are we doing it? Perhaps to PodCast later? Who knows. But it's kinda this experience like when you're high and you think everything that comes out of your mouth is totally profound so you record to later find out it's just a bunch of babbling nonsense - well, maybe. So thats what we did. Was it funny the next day? It actually kinda was. Will it be funny to other listeners? That remains to be seen. The recording process isn't quite ready for prime time so we'll be tweaking that up a bit. Thanks to Zak for getting this started.
The second was the introduction of a new death chart. More on that later.
The final interesting bit was the fact that my wife actually sat down for a session. Yes, all you married Grognards out there, amazing at it sounds, my wife actually rolled some dice with us. Now, I always open the invitation to her as the players begin to arrive but she's always been apprehensive. I played a couple of solo sessions with her a year or two ago. Her verdict was undecided. It was hard to give her the full game experience with just one inexperienced player and DM. She didn't quite know how to handle the open-endedness of game play though I helped her along as much as possible. I told her that to really experience the game we need more players.
Fast forward to present day and here we are at our campaign session.
Christy (me wife) walked in to the man-cave and asked if she were too late?
Of course not! Never! Sit right down!
She played the same character she rolled up back in the solo sessions; Maudlin the dwarf fighter with a CHA of 5!
So she sat down next to me (for some additional coaching) and we got started...
After leaving the home of the Amazon Cron fully healed, the party headed south along the edge of Harrowood and back towards Caladan to return the Crimson Skull of Yam-Gregak to Father Halford of the temple of Mithra.
As they trudged along through the falling snow they spied running out of the woods a dwarf chased by a number of giant ants! Some of the ants notice the party and begin to head in their direction. Wolfheir leaped upon his horse and rushed to aid the fleeing dwarf while the rest of the party prepared for the onslaught of the ants.
Skwanky and Nadrak rushed forward while Wolf galloped past the little dwarf and reaching down lifted him/her upon his horse. He lead the rest of the ants away from the party.
Skwanky was knocked unconscious as was Nadrak. The ants lifted those two and began to carry them off to their nest while the rest of the party began to loose the battle. Things were looking pretty grim!
Wolf, noticing that the party was in trouble, headed back to aid his companions bringing the rest of the ants with him. As he neared the party he left the dwarf with the horse and then leaped into battle, hacking at the ants.
The dwarf reeled around to cut off the fleeing ants with their prisoners. From the horse, the dwarf hacked the two ants dead.
The rest of the party battled the ants but it wasn't until Slick Vinny pulled out his wand of flesh to stone that the tide turned and the party finally ended up victorious.
After recovering their some of their wounds, the dwarf was introduced as Maudlin. She was out with her fellow travelers seeking the ruined temple in Harrowood when they were attacked by the Gian Ants. Apparently, the dwarf was the only survivor.
The party continued south and set up camp near the ancient Three Sisters of the Sea where they were briefly attacked by Stirges.
The next day, though still snowing, they arrived at Caladan and presented the Crimson Skull to an excited Father Halford. The party recovered their remaining wounds as the snow still came steadily down in Caladan the night before the Black Sabbath - a night where black magic is at it's most potent….
So that was my wife's first real session. I meant for the ants to be a brief encounter but does anything go as planned in this game? Actually, it shouldn't. But the ants did take up quite a bit of the session and that took away from some of the group role-playing that is always good for new players. Did Christy enjoy the game? It's hard to say. She laughed a lot as did we all but I think she was still a bit iffy on how the whole 'role-playing' thing works. That night, however, and at our weekly sketchgroup, she proceed to illustrate a portrait of her dwarf Maudlin. That's a positive sign. A game to inspire imagination indeed! I don't have a scan of her drawing yet but I'll post that soon.
Our next session is this evening. Will Maudlin return? Stay tuned!
As for that new death chart I mentioned above; I've been going with a kind of standard negative hit point death rule. However, I always felt that battle should leave it's scars both mental and physical. I ran across this chart from Carjacked Seraphim a couple of weeks ago and decided to try it in my session. It seemed to make actual death a bit less possible but throws in a couple of other options for lost limbs and dismemberment. We used it with the battle with the ants and it actually saved Skwanky and Nadrak from game death. I'll still play with this and see how it goes.
One, we attempted to record the audio of the gameplay. Why are we doing it? Perhaps to PodCast later? Who knows. But it's kinda this experience like when you're high and you think everything that comes out of your mouth is totally profound so you record to later find out it's just a bunch of babbling nonsense - well, maybe. So thats what we did. Was it funny the next day? It actually kinda was. Will it be funny to other listeners? That remains to be seen. The recording process isn't quite ready for prime time so we'll be tweaking that up a bit. Thanks to Zak for getting this started.
The second was the introduction of a new death chart. More on that later.
The final interesting bit was the fact that my wife actually sat down for a session. Yes, all you married Grognards out there, amazing at it sounds, my wife actually rolled some dice with us. Now, I always open the invitation to her as the players begin to arrive but she's always been apprehensive. I played a couple of solo sessions with her a year or two ago. Her verdict was undecided. It was hard to give her the full game experience with just one inexperienced player and DM. She didn't quite know how to handle the open-endedness of game play though I helped her along as much as possible. I told her that to really experience the game we need more players.
Fast forward to present day and here we are at our campaign session.
Christy (me wife) walked in to the man-cave and asked if she were too late?
Of course not! Never! Sit right down!
She played the same character she rolled up back in the solo sessions; Maudlin the dwarf fighter with a CHA of 5!
So she sat down next to me (for some additional coaching) and we got started...
After leaving the home of the Amazon Cron fully healed, the party headed south along the edge of Harrowood and back towards Caladan to return the Crimson Skull of Yam-Gregak to Father Halford of the temple of Mithra.
As they trudged along through the falling snow they spied running out of the woods a dwarf chased by a number of giant ants! Some of the ants notice the party and begin to head in their direction. Wolfheir leaped upon his horse and rushed to aid the fleeing dwarf while the rest of the party prepared for the onslaught of the ants.Skwanky and Nadrak rushed forward while Wolf galloped past the little dwarf and reaching down lifted him/her upon his horse. He lead the rest of the ants away from the party.
Skwanky was knocked unconscious as was Nadrak. The ants lifted those two and began to carry them off to their nest while the rest of the party began to loose the battle. Things were looking pretty grim!
Wolf, noticing that the party was in trouble, headed back to aid his companions bringing the rest of the ants with him. As he neared the party he left the dwarf with the horse and then leaped into battle, hacking at the ants.
The dwarf reeled around to cut off the fleeing ants with their prisoners. From the horse, the dwarf hacked the two ants dead.
The rest of the party battled the ants but it wasn't until Slick Vinny pulled out his wand of flesh to stone that the tide turned and the party finally ended up victorious.
After recovering their some of their wounds, the dwarf was introduced as Maudlin. She was out with her fellow travelers seeking the ruined temple in Harrowood when they were attacked by the Gian Ants. Apparently, the dwarf was the only survivor.
The party continued south and set up camp near the ancient Three Sisters of the Sea where they were briefly attacked by Stirges.
The next day, though still snowing, they arrived at Caladan and presented the Crimson Skull to an excited Father Halford. The party recovered their remaining wounds as the snow still came steadily down in Caladan the night before the Black Sabbath - a night where black magic is at it's most potent….
So that was my wife's first real session. I meant for the ants to be a brief encounter but does anything go as planned in this game? Actually, it shouldn't. But the ants did take up quite a bit of the session and that took away from some of the group role-playing that is always good for new players. Did Christy enjoy the game? It's hard to say. She laughed a lot as did we all but I think she was still a bit iffy on how the whole 'role-playing' thing works. That night, however, and at our weekly sketchgroup, she proceed to illustrate a portrait of her dwarf Maudlin. That's a positive sign. A game to inspire imagination indeed! I don't have a scan of her drawing yet but I'll post that soon.
Our next session is this evening. Will Maudlin return? Stay tuned!
As for that new death chart I mentioned above; I've been going with a kind of standard negative hit point death rule. However, I always felt that battle should leave it's scars both mental and physical. I ran across this chart from Carjacked Seraphim a couple of weeks ago and decided to try it in my session. It seemed to make actual death a bit less possible but throws in a couple of other options for lost limbs and dismemberment. We used it with the battle with the ants and it actually saved Skwanky and Nadrak from game death. I'll still play with this and see how it goes.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Session Music
After a much needed respite from working (and gaming) I have returned. I've got plenty of catching up to do but why get into all that when I can get back into posting a bunch of my nonsense about my adventures in gaming. Besides, having just come back from the eye doctor my eyes are as dilated as Daffy Duck on acid and this is about all I can do at the moment!
This Monday begins our 22nd session (I still have a recap to catch-up on). Though I have tried this once before I thought I'd give it another go. Early in our campaign I had some session music going in the background. Not sure if it worked too well as I thought of it as more of a distraction and I have a hell of a time keeping my raucous players focused enough as it is. But who am I to give up. The more ambient the better.
So here we go again. A re-edited selection of music.
I just picked up 'Necronomicon' by Nox Arcana. A pretty good collection of ambient dungeon crawling music or especially for your Cuthulhu game. We'll see how that goes over.
Soundtrack music from the TV show Dark Shadows. A gothic TV soap opera from the late 60's and early 70's with vampires, witches and even a werewolf.
Selected songs from...Conan the Barbarian soundtrack. Can't forget Basil Poledouris for some dynamic dice rolling!
Finally, some selected music from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Kinda reminds me of Neverwinter Nights but it'll do.
So this is what I've got cued up and ready to go come Monday evening, randomly shuffled of course.
Any other good ideas, let me know. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWf3iJjqYCM
This Monday begins our 22nd session (I still have a recap to catch-up on). Though I have tried this once before I thought I'd give it another go. Early in our campaign I had some session music going in the background. Not sure if it worked too well as I thought of it as more of a distraction and I have a hell of a time keeping my raucous players focused enough as it is. But who am I to give up. The more ambient the better.So here we go again. A re-edited selection of music.
I just picked up 'Necronomicon' by Nox Arcana. A pretty good collection of ambient dungeon crawling music or especially for your Cuthulhu game. We'll see how that goes over.
Soundtrack music from the TV show Dark Shadows. A gothic TV soap opera from the late 60's and early 70's with vampires, witches and even a werewolf.
Selected songs from...Conan the Barbarian soundtrack. Can't forget Basil Poledouris for some dynamic dice rolling!Finally, some selected music from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Kinda reminds me of Neverwinter Nights but it'll do.So this is what I've got cued up and ready to go come Monday evening, randomly shuffled of course.
Any other good ideas, let me know. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWf3iJjqYCM
Friday, September 10, 2010
Okay, Jeez, Is WOTC Just Getting Desperate Or What?
Ride some coat-tails and make a buck.
They do own all the art along with the IP so I guess they can do whatever they want, but come one, have a little dignity.
Well, the bus is cool but 30 years too late. Still desperate times call for desperate measures.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)