Session XLI: PornOGREphy

So Monday was our last RPG session of the year. The holidays just go too damn busy to even try to schedule 10 people to get together to roll dice. So we usually take this time off and regroup after the new year.

We were planning on a full table, even Tim, who hasn't played in I don't know how long, showed up. We lost one player at the last minute and one ended up Skyping in due to new Baby watching duties. Eight faces around the table along with three cats and two dogs; full house no matter which way you slice it.

It was the usual raucous session and much hilarity ensued most of which, unfortunately, doesn't make it into the posts.

After passing through the gore and entrails of the 12 apostles of the Black Sun and catching up to their companions in the Temple of the Black Sun, Gnarly and Wolfheir come upon the scene we left our heroes in last session; Arg the half-orc unconscious by the hand of Skwanky the halfling, Slick Vinny invisible and bleeding after being mauled by a Hydra, the turn-coat Father Halford entangled in a web cast by Vinny, Flora-Fawn the fairy hovering around the remaining snapping jaws of said hydra, and Televon with the Crown of the Black Sun upon his head.

As Gnarly was healing Vinny and Wolf was debating slaying the entangled Halford, in walked their long lost companion, Adessa. Apparently, Adessa had split the group after she had lost a battle with her evil side and had recently taken up with Halford. She was working with Ankral the Dwarf assassin in a distant chamber was was told by her dwarven boss to go see what the commotion was.

Spying his new hire, Halford tries to get Adessa to free him but Wolf leaps onto the amazon and pinned her to the ground. Even with her Gauntlets of Ogre Strength she was unable to free herself from the Viking warrior. Soon afterwards, Wolf and Gnarly had her bound but that didn't last long as she snapped the rope strands and began to attack the Viking. But it was Gnarly that put her down once again by heating her armor and making her pass out. This time they removed her Gauntlets and bound her once again.

The hydra, who was unable to climb out of the hole, fled back into it's lair with one of it's head dragging behind, a causality of Arg and FloraFawn.

Arg and Skwanky wanted to follow the Hydra down it's Hydra-hole but first they prodded Halford a bit. Gnarly stabbed him in the back with his spear and then Arg tossed him into the pit. (Wolf then urinated on him from above but I'll leave that part out).

Then Arg and Skwanky tied a rope to the alter and lowered themselves down into the pit. They saw Halford limping away, mumbling. The two warriors pursued the fallen priest and began to hack away at him. Halford had one last ace up his sleeve as he reached out and grabbed the Half-orc and burned him with the remaining power of the black sun. Then calling the Hydra back upon his enemies Father Halford, former priest of Mithra and now follower of the Black Sun fell dead. But Arg and Skwanky had more to contend with as they were face to face with the now four headed hydra. As one head began chomping on the halfling, Arg began smashing through the other heads until the beast lay dead. Finding nothing in the lair and wounded and bloodied, they ascended back up to the temple.

Adessa, learning of Halford's death felt no obligation to him what-so-ever and told his former companions that there were hidden treasures somewhere within these chambers. The Dwarf assassin had some and Halford had some hidden as well. It was decided to head over to the dwarf and steal her treasures.

Still unsure of Adessa's motives, Gnarly kept her bound as she lead them to the Dwarf's chambers. Now with the Gautlets of Ogre Strength upon his tiny hands, Skwanky the halfling and Arg knocked on the door. A gruff female voice on the other side answered. When Arg, trying to impersonate Adessa responded, a furious Ankral opened the door to discipline Adessa She was surprised to find Arg standing there. A brief fight in the doorway later Ankral was dead but then her lover Charles the Ogre battled Arg and Skwanky but soon he too fell to the onslaught of the Half-orc and mighty halfling barrage!

Lifting some keys off of their fallen foes, the party explored the temple dungeon and the chambers of Ankral and Charles. Within the Dungeons they discovered a handful of citizens of Caladan awaiting their fate to be turned into Ghouls for Halford's undead army. Gnarly and Televon aided the unnerved prisoners.

Meanwhile, Arg broke into Charles' the Ogre's room. Besides a pile of straw and dirty rags the walls were etched with crude drawings of naked ogre females as well as nude drawings of Ankral the dwarf (this is what happens when you let the players help describe the contents of the room).

Finding nothing of value within the chamber the party proceed to explore Ankral's room and found a sensual pleasure chamber; incense, and tapestries, cushions and divans and even a heart shaped bed! It seemed that in the recent weeks of Adessa's employment, Ankral the Dwarf and Charles the Ogre had tried to get Adessa to join them in a dwarf / ogre / amazon three-way but she didn't want any of that.

After finding a trapped chest which hit Gnarly with an arrow, the room was looted and the party, leading the prisoners, moved on. Gnarly lead the prisoners back up to the cabin (the entrance to the temple tunnels) to await their return as they continued to explore the rest of the temple.

Heading down the southern and final passage they descend deeper into the temple. Opening a final door, Arg and Skwanky step into a large cavern guarded by three ogres and overseen by an aid to Halford. In front of this shady character were two tables with two townsfolk on them, other prisoners are in a cell at the back of the cave. Arg tried to bluff his way in and past the Ogres but eventually the shady character called the ogres to attack as the rest of the party rushed into the room.

Skwanky put on his ring of invisibility to try to get behind the shady guy and kill him but it wasn't before the minion pulled a lever that opened up two grates and in rushed twenty ghouls! Televon, acting quickly, lifted his holy symbol of Morpheus and half the the ghouls retreated back into the safety of their cave. Gnarly entangled another portion of them with some vines and thorny bushes. Along with the Ogres the remainder of the ghouls attacked the party. A large chaotic battle ensued with Skwanky and Arg taking out the ogres while the ghouls began to paralyze and the rest of the party. Eventually, one by one, the remaining ghouls were destroyed but not before a number of close calls!

After freeing the other prisoners and plundering the ghoul lab, the party headed back up to the cabin. Dusk was falling so it was decided that they all, party, mushrooms and rescued prisoners, hole up in the cabin until dawn. The session ended with the party discussing where they might have missed some treasure for they never found Halford's quarters.

So after almost two and a half years of gaming, forty-one sessions with S&W and a year passing in game time it was a pretty fun session for the last one of the year. A lot of laughs and some surprises with Brian gifting games to everyone. A great group indeed!

ICONS Campaign Creation: Exquisite Corpse Style

Update: This post squeaked out before it was done in the oven. I hope it's not too badly written.

I mentioned that I'd start discussing my ICONS campaign idea so here we go.

I've been running my Swords & Wizardry campaign for just over two years now. We took one break last summer so that I can be a player in a Savage Worlds campaign (which still needs to be completed). Needless to say, I'm getting a bit dry on running a fantasy campaign and a nice change is needed. That is where ICONS will be coming in.

Here's the pitch....

I've learned to let the players create the campaign world while I just fill in what is needed. I love campaign histories too so instead of coming up with this on my own for ICONS (which I really don't want to do), I thought I'd let the group as a whole create this campaign. I also want to be a player more and not be stuck 'behind the screen' so much.

Now ICONS, if you haven't checked it out, is a very rules lite Heroes game. I think it would be easy for anyone to run a session. The mechanics are quite simple leaving all the rolling to the players, that leaves the GM as more of a guide for the session, introducing plots and characters and situations without having to keep all the rules and rolls in his/her head.

I like that. I like that a lot.

So the ICONS campaign will rotate GMs every session. The GM can use whatever the previous GM used such as plot, characters, events etc or just go off on his own tangent. Since most of the sessions will be self-contained there shouldn't be much of a problem. Even if a session is 'to be continued', the next GM can take that story anywhere he wants. Any GM can tap into previous events to spark a session of their own. Think of it as an Exquisite Corpse style of gaming. Everyone GMs and everyone plays. Think of every GM as a comic writer coming in to take over a title.

There will four or five rounds of this. The first round will take place in the Golden Age of comics around the early 1940's, the second round will take place in the Silver Age (the 1960's) while the third will take place in the Bronze Age of comics (70's/80's) and finally modern times. So each GM would run just a single session within one of those ages.

This whole process will create a history rich campaign that any GM can tap into for additional story material. Perhaps a villain from the Golden Age puts himself in suspended animation and returns in the bronze age more powerful than ever? Maybe the outcome of WW II is different than real history which would create a totally different world and scenarios than now? Whatever the case may be, everyone would be involved and invested in the creation of this campaign world.

So I would run the first game session starting in 1942. At the end of that night's session, the remaining players that are interested in running a session all roll a die, we'll say a d12 since it's kind of a lonely die. The highest roll will run the next session which continues the Golden Age era, all the way around until everyone had a turn to run a session then we move on to the Silver Age, etc.

Now I like the idea of not knowing when your GMing turn comes up as it keeps you on your toes, letting your ideas form based on previous sessions. Of course, you can come up with a complete adventure without tapping into anything that happened previously. But my experience with this group is that they're very creative and there's gonna be plenty of things happening that no one else would have thought of but could be a great inspiration.

So that's the general concept. The rest of the group liked the idea too. I'll be fleshing things out a bit more and, of course, posting it here for your reading pleasure!

ICONS' Appeal To Me, An Old Schooler

What is it about ICONS, a modern rules-lite heroes game, that has such strong appeal to me, a self-proclaimed old-school gamer?

Good question, I'm glad you asked me!

I'm not a big fan of modern table-top RPGs. With but a few exceptions, I think most of the rules are way over complicated, character generation is absurdly drawn out, and the marketing aspect of having to purchase more 'optional' books and crap is, well, just a shitty marketing ploy. I'm a cheap-ass gamer, if I can't get something for a few dollars or less I'll just make it myself. Plus I always felt that the odds of killing some monster are really the same no matter if you're a 5th level Fighting-man battling a room full of Ogres or if your a 5th level Gnome Barbarian who's half Lycanthrope with a +8 quarterstaff of dread and rolling 20d6+3 for dammage battling a room full of Ogres (well, you know what I mean). The game mechanics just scale but the odds are the same just over complicated. Feel free to check my math, but that's my theory anyway.

The same story is told, the same battles take place so why not keep it simple? Who really has the time for all that nit-picking? I just want to have a good time with friends where we all tell a story.

So back to ICONS....

First off, ICONS is a rules/mechanic lite game. 2d6 and the players make all the rolls testing one ability against another. Modifiers are kept to a minimum. Anything goes in combat between heroes and villains but the rules are simple and open enough that with just half a thought rolls can be made. The action and the game is colored by all the players involved. Actions are fully open to the depth of the players imagination, which I think is THE key element to any rules-lite game. The same rolls of the dice my be used to determine similar actions but what the player adds to that action determines the drama. Again, the creativity of play falls back onto the players and not the rules.

Though the layout and production of the rules and supplements may have a Bruce Timm cartoon quality to it don't let that fool you, the game can be played with any mood in mind, from a grim, dark and dirty avenging knight to a Kirby-esque cosmic level world eating threat and anything in-between. The rules give you just what is needed to take it anywhere you want to go. It's a complete game in under 130 pages.

Steve Kenson, the creator of ICONS (and of Mutants and Masterminds) hit the nail on the head with what I feel is a modern old-school style game. There are plenty of references in the rules to 'using common sense' and 'just make it up' which might be alien to some strictly modern gamers but is pure gold for someone coming from an Old School background. In the section that is called Game Rules vs. Common Sense Kenson wryly states:

'...ignore the rules and go with what makes the most sense to you and what
you think will be the most fair and fun for your players; and if one of them should object and say, “That’s not in the rules!” point them to this paragraph and say, “Yes, it is.” '

Beautiful loophole to put rule sticklers in their place.

Character generation is quick and exciting and sparks plenty of imaginative characters. Everything is laid out for a player to flesh out his rolled character with his own creativity. That's a beautiful reference to the early versions of RPGs where the player developed the character based on a few stat rolls and not the other way around. And that's the point, there is plenty of room for developing a well rounded, three-dimensional character based on the players imagination and not dice rolls.

Kenson gives us random charts to create adventure hooks on the fly, a handful (13) of fully fleshed out colorful villains each with origins and three adventure ideas, and even a sample adventure. Did I mention a provided single page character sheet with a full quarter of it left open for you to draw your character?

As I mentioned above, it's a complete game in 130 pages. Adamant Entertainment have the pdf rules on sale right now over at RPG Now for $1.99. So for that price it's worth checking out. I'm not a big fan of using rules in pdf format. I usually need to reference and flip back quickly to clarify and compare elements so I actually purchased the print version of the rules. Now, the cost is a bit steep for what I would pay for a 130 page rule book but I made the exception for ICONS and was very happy with the purchase. A very well produced and printed book, the size and shape of a graphic novel.

So in short, why ICONS appeals to me, an old-school gamer:

1. Complete game in 130 pages.
2. Quick and creative character generation
3. Rules-lite with simple mechanics
4. An anything goes and anything can happen attitude
5. Creative game play is left up the the players around the table and not the dice
6. Adventures and villains included.

One common criticism of the game is that it is limited towards long term campaign play. This I disagree with. It can work fine in long-term play as is or with a couple of simple house rules to allow for character 'advancement' or a point based character creation process. Like many of the games I started out with, Holmes Basic D&D, Traveller, and Top Secret the game doesn't have to 'define' specific rules for 'level' advancement, character development and situations define that. Levels are just a guide.

So there you have it. The mystery of the allure of ICONS revealed.

Preparing To Play A New Game Takes Me A Loooong Time

Time is limited for everyone these days so picking the 'right' game is everything.

For me, preparing to play a new RPG takes me a long time. Once we start playing, however, prep-time shrinks to almost nothing but prior to that first session, I spend months looking over the rules, understanding the rules, contemplating campaign scenarios, debating rule-sets for genre, etc. The main reason is that I want everything during that first session to go smoothly, I want the players to have a great time and I, as GM, want to have a great time as well and not be hung-up on rule mechanics.

When I began our Swords & Wizardry campaign back in October of 2009 I went through quite a long process before that first session. Not in game session prep but in research. At that time I've been out of gaming since the early 80's so I was starting fresh.

After a big reminiscence session with a friend of mine about D&D (he pulled out the LBBs) and soon after Gary's passing, I began being drawn back into the excitement of that FRPG. It was then that I discovered DragonsFoot and from there I found the beginnings of the soon to be called OSR. I found out that many folks kept playing the original rules, that there were plenty Holmes fans out there and that people were publishing 'new' rule books based on the old games.

Those new rules are what really opened things up for me and began the journey to find what rule system to use. I thought about just going back to Holmes (my starter) but I worried about getting other folks interested. I thought that these new rules, however similar to the origins, would be a great way to get folks interested into something new yet old.

I picked up Basic Fantasy RPG and loved what I saw there. I thought this was great! A 'modern' take on the FRPG that I loved so much back in the day. However, though it was so close to what I wanted to run it wasn't quite there. I then found Labyrinth Lord. Ah, now this was much closer to what I was looking for. At first I felt it was closer to my Holmes edition but upon deeper exploration I saw it was closer to Moldvay's. A slight difference to some but a big difference to me.

When I discovered Swords & Wizardry I had found my rule-set (January 2009). Perfect. Loose, open-ended and 'new'. Perfect for getting folks involved and rules-lite for my limited time commitments.

Now that I had my rule-set I began to re-learn the game; combat, monsters, armor class, saving throws, all of that once second nature to me back in junior high and high school but lost to my modern brain.

I took months to understand the rules and the rule potentials which is not surprising as many of you still debate rules from the early versions of the game.

Then came deciding what type of campaign it would be. But with much research with the blogs popping up with the same questions and curiosities that I had, much was answered. With interesting charts found and additional classes I finally put together my first session nine months later. Yes, nine months.

So if you've been following this blog recently, you may have noticed that I've had some interest in running a Heroes game. I've picked up a copy of the 1st edition of Champions, V&V and began playing in an online Mystery Men! game, comparing everything I want in a heroes games. I've had my eyes on ICONS and have been studying the rules for a couple of months now. I think this is the game rules that I plan on going with. They're very lite, and after a few mechanics tests it proved to have some staying power.

Believe me, it took me a loooong time to make that final decision. I've worked up a pretty decent campaign idea which I'll share shortly but it looks like we'll be hitting some ICONS actions shortly after the holidays.

Welcome Black Friday....

....or as we like to traditionally call it:

Try to guess which picture are the actual black Friday shoppers. I know, it's hard isn't?

Woman Pepper Sprays Shoppers To Get X-box

Session XL: Jamaican Me Crazy

WITH former priest of Mithra turned follower of the Black Sun Father Halford captured, our faithful adventurers interrogated the traitor at their Moon-tower.

Slick Vinny, after doing some research on the Crimson Skull of Yam-Gregak, charmed the priest. The priest took a liking to Vinny but gave a rat's ass about the rest of the group.

Vinny found out that Zenopus the Vampire was indeed living deep beneath their tower and that Halford was in cahoots with her for quite a while, using the party to retrieve the Crimson Skull for his own nefarious plans of raising an army of the undead.

Halford had built a temple to the Black Sun hidden beneath the cabin of a female dwarf assassin named Ankral.

After some debate, it was decided to go after Halford's temple of the Black Sun in the hopes of gaining the treasures of the travelers that he had captured and turned into his ghoul army.

With the poisonous Halford leading the wary party down the South Coast Road to the edge of Harrowood, they came upon the abandoned looking cabin of Ankral. The sprite Flora-Fawn flew down the chimney to check things out. She found just an empty cabin and relayed that back to the party.

They entered the cabin and Halford lead them to the hidden entrance to his temple. They all descend down a spiral staircase and into a lit chamber. After coming upon a locked door with the key lost, Arg the Half-orc bashed the door open alerting the acolytes of the Black Sun. Halford quieted their concerns and lead the party to the temple entrance. But Arg turned around and started smashing through the religious fanatics. At that point, Halford rushed through the door and into the temple of the Black Sun, running for an alter with a black crown upon it, shouting to his cult followers to attack the party but spare the wizard, Vinny.

Vinny followed Halford and cast a web spell upon him holding him in place short of the alter. Televon ran up to the alter and lifted up the iron crown. At that moment, from a pit in the center of the floor, rose the five heads of a hydra which attacked the nearest victim which just so happened to be Vinny. Near death, Vinny turned himself invisible and raw away while Flora-Fawn attacked the heads with her magic.

Meanwhile, Skwanky the halfling warrior and Arg quickly hacked and slashed their way through the cult followers leaving a bloody mess in the hallway. Heading towards the temple entrance the Orc and Halfling saw the hydra heads attacking their allies. Skwanky took a sling and tried to attack one of the heads but critically missed and the stone flew backwards and knocked Arg out!

While Televon tried to use the crown to 'control' the Hydra, Vinny attempted to steal it by levitating it off the cleric's head, but the priest of Morpheus was too quick and grabbed onto the crown. This caused Vinny to become even more frustrated with his long time companions and pushed him ever closer to the darker side of his arcane arts.

So that ended the session. You might be asking yourself what the heck does the session title have to do with anything that happened in game? Well, due to a few too many beers at the table the Cleric of Morpheus suddenly began speaking in a Jamaican accent. Hilarious, though typically expected RPG table action.

It looks like we'll be fitting in one last session before our usual holiday break so stay tuned dear reader!

Tales Of High Adventure eBook

Last week I released Tales of High Adventures as an eBook for the Kindle, today, I'm happy to say, it now also available for the Nook!


Tales of High Adventure for NOOK

Tales of High Adventure for Kindle

Tales of High Adventure in Print at ComiXpress