UK Games Expo 2016

All the people and a bus

I went to the UK Games Expo at the NEC Birmingham, and this is my after action statement.

TL;DR unless you only play Games Workshop war games, why weren’t you there? It was awesome.

A couple of months ago I decided to go to UK Games Expo on a ‘whim’. The line-up looked great, and having had such a good day running HATECON ONE, I thought I’d try a games convention purely as an attendee. I’ve not been to one without being sat behind a stall for 15 years and reckoned I owed it to myself. I also made the conscious decision to not particularly organize a group visit, mostly to push myself into being more proactively social.

Since I was late in booking, I missed staying in the Hilton where most of the gaming was occurring, and stayed in the very comfortable Crowne Plaza, 5 minutes walk from the venues and which serves the best morning filter coffee I’ve had in a UK hotel. It was not a cheap hotel though.

Arriving on Thursday, I explored a bit, picked up my pre-paid ticket and then went and had a pint and chat in the main bar with another ‘solo’ who had posted on Twitter that they were also foot-loose. This was a great start. Tick the being social box.

Otherworld miniatures *heart*

Square Hex *auto kickstarter back*

On Friday I waited for the queues to die down before going into the main hall, where I immediately fell into the traders pattern of running around, not really taking anything in and being in a rush. Dumb. But I did immediately pick up a copy of The Cthulhu Hack, so not that dumb. After reminding myself I was in no rush, I started to wander and started to take in the huge scale of the trade floor, which is similar size to Salute but with wider spacing between the stalls. The variety of board game stalls, demos and traders was really impressive, and several of my favourite companies were there including Otherworld miniatures, Osprey, Square Hex, James Raggi, Leisure Games, Oathsworn, and All Rolled up. There were quite a few non-GW miniature games being rep’d including a huge Star Wars Fantasy Flight area, but I think it was the Meeple People with their boardgame library and play area that really stood out. Honestly, if you’re a board gamer you could play 24hrs a day here quite easily, with the right drugs.

I played two organized play games, an Adventurers League Strahd side quest which was a lot of fun, although I had to reign in my noble lawful good paladin roleplaying, cos it would be easy to grandstand and become THAT dysfunctional player. The second game was meant to be A Shadows Of The Demon Lord game, but it wasn’t where my ticket said it was and nobody could find it, so I (very easily) joined a Call Of Cthulhu game instead. Definitely not the worst way to spend 4 hours but the group was a slower pace than I’m used to, and I was reminded why Trail Of Cthulhu is the better system for investigative roleplaying by the very example I use to sell it. The Alienist with a 78% Library Use skill couldn’t make the roll over and over again.  

Some HATE (James, Dee, Greg & Tim) members came up on the Saturday and after shopping and chin wagging, I ran an improv impromptu game of The Black Hack for them, with a vague Moorcockian Eternal Champions theme. I continue to be impressed with how good The Black Hat is for theatre of the mind D&D, and I had a huge amount of fun running it.

Much beer was drunk, at slightly frightening hotel bar prices. It was great catching up with old and new friends (Colette, Ian, Bruce, etc), and it really is a big part of the reason to go for whole convention rather than just a day.

Ralph and me

On Sunday afternoon I booth sat for Ralph Horsley for awhile, and then just hung out with him which I’ve not had a chance to do since the early days of Dragonmeet. Top dude.

In summary I’d say you’d be absolutely crazy not to go to UK Games Expo next year if you’re a board or miniature gamer who likes cons. If you’re a roleplayer who enjoys convention games then it’s also a must, but book your games early as you’ll want a least one game a day and while there maybe lots of lots of games being run, there are over a thousand roleplayers also wanting to play. The only people I suspect wouldn’t get much from it are GW only war gamers, as neither GW nor FW were there, and there was no hardcore war gaming space that I saw. If you like X-Wing or similar model based tabletop games, you’d be in heaven though. The atmosphere was very relaxed, very friendly and I didn’t see any fuckwittery at all.

For things that might improve the experience even further I’d say would be to improve the tannoy system so that it didn’t deafen. Move the talks out of the trade hall, as they were understandably loud. See if the Hilton has temporary partitions to break up some of the sound in the play rooms, where it was quite noisy at times. Have a code of conduct front and centre in the programme. Maybe bunch up birds of a feather stalls so that, for example, the RPG companies are closer together. And as ever, get the bars to stock good tequila.

Jame Raggi and me, all the metal

Daleks 

Osprey Joe and me  

The one and only Bez (and Dan, is also one and only)

Oathsworn / Sensible Shoes

The Cthulhu Hack & it's genius Flashlight / Smokes mechanic

Dwimmermount Session 22 - Frost Giant Ate The Donkey

(It's been awhile since I posted - work meant I had little time to write up sessions, then holidays meant we didn't play, so the session diary is behind)

After defeating the evil mage Varazes and his minotaur bodyguard Bok last session, the party started searching the rest of the area. A hermetically sealed chamber nearby was too tempting for Calphis the mage who used a precious charge from Rod Of Opening to gain access to what lay beyond. The party were disappointed, as all that was behind the door were stasis chambers, two of which were occupied by a man and woman wearing unusual but non-descript clothes. A debate formed around trying to release them, with Bittersalt suggesting it was too dangerous to the inhabitants and Grigor feeling it was too dangerous to the party. Brother Spenzar, was overcome by knowledge-lust, started pressing buttons on the devices and quickly hit the right combination to drain and release the woman.

After a few moments of confusion, the woman named Arethusa, who appeared to be in her late thirties starting speaking in archaic High Thulian. The party were wary, they knew that she might be a Termaxian and so tried to ascertain when she had been frozen, which turned out to be about 300 years ago, around the time Turms Termax was coming into power. She claimed that she maintained the machines within the fortress-dungeon and that she was something called a technomage. Lots of questioning ensued, and eventually her assistant Colluthus was also released.

The pool of life, as she called the room Varazes had been hold up in, wasn’t initially intended to be used to create beastmen, and that in her time the device that did so wasn’t there but she had heard some of the biomancers talk about it. She said she could turn the beastman maker off if she could get something called an environment suit, and that such a suit might still be in one of the panic rooms north of the party, since they were well hidden.

The party decide they needed to rest, but not before retrieving some supplies from their pack donkey, left outside the dungeon. So they return to the surface, quite a horrific trip for the two maintenance mages due to the damage and changes that have happen in the last 300 years. Finally the reach the the surface only to find the donkey has been attacked and the camp destroyed. Huge foot prints in bloody mud suggest the frost giant found and destroyed their belongings.
Reluctant to go back to Muntberg with a still working beastman machine, the party holed up in one of the rooms they’d rested in before and then went and retrieve a pair of environment suits. Also in the panic room were some healing potions and a dirk designed to fend off the hobgoblins, should they ever rebel, which at the time was a concern according to Arethusa.

The machine is switched off, and the party start pushing on through unexplored areas. They reach a chamber that still has a working glowglobe to find it full of thorny bush, which immediately animate and attack the party. They dispose of these blood sucking plants quickly, thanks to several natural 20’s and move to the next room which is filled with cactus that shoot off large spines in their direction. The liberal use of burning oil puts pay to these floral menances. At this point Mags, our friendly barlady at Bethnal Green Working Men’s club called time, so we finished it there.

It was fantastic to get back into the regular game, and I’m almost sorry I have to skip a week due to my Snowboarding holiday that coming up. Can’t wait for the next session, and I have a pile of models that need painting as the party start thinking about going down to the 3rd level, known as The House Of Portals.    

5e D&D Dwimmermount Session 6 - Gelatinous Cube!

While it looked like the party might take their first journey to the city of Adamas at the end of last session, the lure of gold keep them at Dwimmermount. They buried their treasure further down the slope amongst some Thulian and then set camp once again near the entrance. During the night Bittersalt was broken from her meditative trance by far off sounds and the distance glow of a fire. Reaching for her sea captain’s telescope she saw at first what she thought was a very pale man walk down the slopes of the mountain past Dwimmermount clutching a burning torch. She then realised the torch was infact a tree, and the man none other than a frost giant! He was a long way away and no exactly heading towards the party, so while this event was alarming it didn’t appear to be an immediate threat.

Once back in the dungeon the group went hunting to see if the giant rat poison Bittersalt laid out had an effect. Although the salt fish was gone, there weren’t any immediate signs of dead rats.

At this point the parties map started to prove it’s worth. They decided to try and join some sections up, and in so doing discovered some slight inaccuracies, but now have a much better overall view of the dungeon surround the entrance. They then backtracked to the corridor which had ended in the locked room with the Wight and all the glorious loot they found last session. Here they went the other way and found another door, which opened into what clearly was a chapel to Mavors. Once again it had defiled, but more importantly the Termaxians had left more Eldritch Dead to guard the chamber, and a fight with the black skeletons ensued. The party felt like they were beginning to understand their strengths and weaknesses, and relatively quickly put down these six undead. Two handed swords, wielded by strong fighters are great at doing a lot of damage.

The party search the frescoed chamber thoroughly, and discovered that the age worn altar had a mechanism that swung a secret door open behind it. With slightly more trepidation than previously displayed, the door was opened and the party discovered a small sack of treasure, including a magical scarab. Also in the secret room was the head of the statue of Mavors that they suspected was from the defiled statue in the entrance room. With great gusto they immediately set off back towards the entrance with Zoilus leading the way.

Horror met them within a few short strides, for in the darkness a huge cube of living gelatinous biomorph acid had been following behind them for sometime. The translucent thing was almost impossible to spot, and the normally hyper aware barbarian was completely taken by surprised (rolled a 1) and engulfed by the Gelatinous Cube mid sentence. At this point there were hoots from the players, who loved coming up against such an iconic D&D monster. The barbarian was badly injured by the acids that smothered him, and would have killed a lesser mortal but he fought his way out and was pulled back behind the rest of the rapidly retreating party. Retreating all save Brother Spenzar, who having seen the danger the party was in the deep concentration of a Bless spell. The Gelatinous cube squeezed forward and grab the priest, who after a brief tug of war was pulled back out of it’s jelly. The party hurled all their available missiles, both magical and mundane into it, and were successful in destroying it’s essential form, turning it into a puddle of inanimate bioacids.  

After healing the barbarian and priest as much as they could they cautiously made their way back to the entrance and set the head of Mavors back in its rightful place. They watched in awe as the cracks disappeared and the statue returned to it’s original glory. Then a glow came about them, and the each felt blessed by the god of war as a reward. This manifested as everyone getting an inspiration point.

We left it there. It was a shorter session than usual, but everyone including me had a great time and I certainly look forward to the next session.

In club news, a new roleplaying group has moved their games night to the club and since it is partially made up of old school friends and a group I played in a long time back it's doubly nice to see. Zoilus' player Ed is also going to running a Dungeon Crawl Classics game in the near future which I'm very excited about. 

5e D&D Dwimmermount Session 5 - Undead unleashed!

The party, along with their torchbearer and lock picker Paulo, descend once more into the ancient halls of Dwimmermount. Bittersalt wished to put out some her giant rat poison, and thinking she knew the way, headed south from entrance hall, this however wasn’t a way they’d been before (your humble DM was at fault here). However her keen hearing detected footsteps approaching, things were marching in step and headed her way, so she retreated back to the main hall where the rest of the party were once again commenting on her recklessness.

From the gloom approached six horrific animated skeletons. They clutched antique khopesh swords or spears and bronze shields, and moved like well trained soldiers. However it was their bones that drew the most interested, for they were covered in the magical silvery-black metal Azoth. even with the warnings from Bittersalt the party failed to maximize their circumstance and attacked as individuals rather than as a team. A few blows were traded, and Tyche the luck goddess seemed to have deserted them, with the barbarian Zoilus taking a critical blow. His incredible fortitude saw him recover and beat back these Eldritch dead. To his horror though he saw his weapons were less effective than they should be.

Brother Spenzar, seeing that the party might be in trouble called upon Typhon to turn back these undead spirits. Throwing all his will and might into the exorcism, his holy power was deadened by the protective Azoth. At that moment the desecrated statue of Typhon that he’d cast down in anger days before stirred and rays of white light shot into the undead, temporarily flaying the power from the metal and allowing Spenzar’s turning to drive some of the skeletons back. Typhon’s reward was forthcoming after all. The battled continued, and still Tyche was in a cruel mood, with Errol charging down and wilding overshooting the skeletons so that he became trapped between their front lines and those who had retreated in the face of Spenzar’s fierce righteousness. It was a tough fight, and the party were exhausted at the end of it.

Realising ‘their’ mistake with the map, they explored the two new doors that southern corridor present. Behind the first was an odd room that had a large iron face of Turms Termax attached to the far western wall, and mouldering benches lined up facing it. When the party approached a strange sound murmured from face. After applying a little oil to the jaw, it spoke out in Old Thulian “Ask a question, if you have one. I’ll answer truthfully, but then you’re done.” Wishing to have nothing to do with cursed Termaxian magic, the party left without speaking to the face.

Seeing that the chamber from the other door contained the disturbing black basalt monolith they’d already found they amended their maps and saw how everything joined up. They then found an empty set of ceils, and rested for an hour to regain some of their powers.

After debating the next steps the decided to push north, away from where they’d spend much of their time so far. Going through the doors leading north from the entrance they discovered a round chamber lined with six fearsome demon masks. Remembering something from history, Brother Spenzar correctly identified them as Thulian Warmasks, used by the ancient Thulians to cower their beastmen armies. Bittersalt, after a cursory check to see how the masks were attached to the wall pulled one off, to be rewarded by cloud of biologically corrosive poison gas! With her lungs burning from the poison, Bittersalt collapsed to the floor after falling a save versus poison, followed by a series of tense death saving throws. Thankfully she survived, and was dragged backwards away from the room and was healed by Spenzar. Using mage hand cantrips, the masks were pulled from wall and tossed into the parties loot bag.

Reaching yet another junction, the party go west and find the corridor ends in a heavy locked door covered in protective iron. The door is successfully unlocked and pulled open. A terrible sight welcomes the party, as stood in the room is menacing figure silently screaming at them. The pale skinned, once human thing looks ancient and a blackness surrounds it, sucking the energy from the very air. It launches itself on Bittersalt, grasping her head with it’s two frozen hands. Bittersalt feels the very life drain from her, as the horrible Wight attacks.

This time however Tyche is very much with party, as swords and spells slam into the once living guardian. It goes down very quickly and fails to drink anymore life force from the elf. As the shadows recede and the Wight dies again, the party spy a large metal chest. While Calphis fails to pick it’s complex lock, Paulo’s small and nimble fingers prove their worth and the heavy padlock is removed. The chest contains a fortune in treasure! Golden candlesticks, bowls and other items lie on top a pile of old Thulian coins. The parties eyes widen as they spot the beautiful longsword, untouched by age that also rests within the chest. After searching through, an ivory and silver wand is removed along with a magical broach.  

We finished the session here, with the party considerably richer than they were and with talk of a trip to the city of Adamas to sell the items they have discovered.

5e D&D Dwimmermount Session 4 - Henchman, allies and drunken tongues

Mattias The Wizard

The party decide that they needed time to rest, train, research and contemplate for a week to better prepare them for their return to Dwimmermount (i.e. level up). During this period they also set about selling the golden shields they’d retrieved from the dungeon and seeing if they could fence the Orc weapons and armour they’d taken. Since Zolius the Hyperborean had spent some time working the bellows of the blacksmith’s forge and was well like by the blacksmith and his apprentices, they got a good deal on the ransacked Orc equipment. Both Bittersalt the Elf and Errol the Dwarf ordered Splint armour, which would take about a month to make. Larenz Arquem, the blacksmith, wouldn’t buy the shields though as he thought them too decorative for his customers who he described as militia-farmers. He mentioned that the Petre brothers, Bynde and Aurri, were in town and these merchants both bought and sold unusual items.

After perusing their wares, including the fine, glum soled dragonskin boots, Bittersalt and Calphas the Mage set about bargaining a price for the shields, both sides walking away feeling like that had struck a reasonable deal. This also gave the party some more local coin. Around this time, Zolius set up a ‘wrestle the barbarian’ stall to help him work out, and given his particular physical qualities he was successful in attracting custom.

During the third night Calphas awoke to find a thief feeling from his room. Chasing after the thief and trying to alert his companions, he saw that the culprit is no more than a boy. His cries of ‘stop thief’ alerted the watch who turned the same corner as the boy. These two guardsman roughly backhanded the boy to the dirt and quiz Calphas. The boy is found to be clutching the mage’s daypurse. The guards haul the boy off, telling the assembled party members that he’ll be tried at the Midday Court by the bailiff in two days, and the sentence would be the chopping off of the boys hands. Bittersalt in particular is outraged by this, and Calphas, who grew up on the streets, has some sympathy for the boy.

On the day of the Midday Court the party gather and enter the actual keep for the first time. It’s much more militaristic than town, with many armed guardsman in well kept uniforms and weapons. In the meeting chamber, the bailiff Lambert sits at a long table, flanked by veterans. Louys Herit, the head priest of Typhon is also their, watching the proceedings. The boy, named Paulo Dewilt, is dragged in and it’s clear he has been badly treated. Lambert calls the case, the guardsmen who captured the boy give the details to which Lambert scowls and curses the boy. He asked for witnesses, and Calphas steps forward but claims he did not sees the boys face, so can’t formally identify him. Lambert asks if it was his purse the boy had about him, to which Calphas is forced to agree.

The boys mother, a washerwoman, bursts in and pleads for mercy for her boy, but Lambert is adamant and sentences the boy to death, by having his hands chopped off. He sets a blood price of 20 gold pieces on the boy. Bittersalt immediately steps forward and says she’ll pay the price. The others in the party are somewhat reluctant, but the boys nimbleness and stealth have impressed them, and they are afterall without a burglar. The terrified boy is handed over to Bittersalt, and his mother promises her eternal gratitude, particularly when the party say they are taking him on.      

Paulo Dewilt, lockpicker

The night before they are due to leave, they are sat around the tavern when they are approached by man wearing dark blue esoteric clothes, he introduces himself as Mattias of Salander. He asks if perhaps the party are in need of the services of a wizard. A drunken Bittersalt questions him, and asks if he can juggle to which the characters flagons rise up and starting circling in the air. “Can you turn someone in a frog?” asks Bittersalt, to which Mattias says, “No, the polymorph other spell is beyond my skill”. The banter continues for awhile, and the conversation turns to the identification of magical items. Bittersalt immediately pulls out the vial of strange red liquid found near the dead dwarves. The wizards goes very quiet and demands to know where this liquid is from, saying that it might be an infusion of Azoth that can used to combine the essences of different creatures. He says that some arcanists propose that it’s this liquid was somehow used to create the first beastmen. He then once again demands to know where they got it from, and then asks them if the doors to Dwimmermount are open, which Bittersalt says that he already knows the answer. Brother Spenzar is furious at the revelation. Mattias says that he’ll aid the party in anyway he can, and is very interested in any magical oddities they discover. The party cautiously agreed to work with Mattias if he kept his silence, to which he replied that it was in his own interests to keep the opening of the dungeon secret.

We ended the session here, as it was 10pm and there wouldn’t be time to do anything meaningful in the dungeon, although they did purchase a mule and some tents to allow them to carry more loot and camp in the wilderness rather than having to return to Muntburg so often.  

All in all, a very enjoyable session of pure roleplaying. Our physical environment, at games club sometimes makes it a little difficult to hear and be heard, so we need to try and get into the back room whenever possible. Willards playing of the drunken elf earned him an inspiration point, but everyone played their characters really well and it was both a humorous and engaging evening. I'm really looking forward to seeing where the characters go when they return to the dungeon itself.

5e D&D Lost Mines Of Phandelver part one

Last night I ran the first session of The Lost Mines Of Phandelver, which is the adventure that comes with the 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set. TLDR; It was a huge amount of fun and the rules were fluid and natural.

We played at HATE VI, my gaming groups club nights, at The Blacksmith And The Toffeemaker pub in Angel, London, UK. It was a boardgames night rather than a full-on wargaming and boardgaming event. Playing in a pub, even in the back room comes with advantages and disadvantages : beer vs noise. I think overall the beer won out, but at times I had to raise my voice, and it was clear once or twice that the party was struggling to communicate. However the venue is central, does good provisions and had a big table.

Anyway, the players blind drew the characters, with only one swap. One player really wanted to play a cleric and the player with the Cleric was happy to change to the Noble Fighter. Naming took no time at all and we ended up with Tor Wightbane, a Folkhero Fighter, Imowen the Halfling Rogue, Zarrfron The Elven Wizard, Brookn The Tall who is the Dwarven Cleric and Lord Strakken the Noble Fighter. The party found their bond very rapidly too, Imowen had used to Tor to help smuggle when he was a dock hand. Brookn had sought to arrest the pair, but had had to join forces with the pair to fight off underdwellers in the cellar he’d cornered them in, and became friends since. Zarrfron had seen Imowen in a strange and cursed vision, so sought the halfling out, and finally Lord Strakken had need of specialists to help regain his wealth.

The adventurers assemble

Gundred, the NPC who acts as the PC’s hook was 2nd cousin to Brookn, so they party were only too glad to help and gain coin. On the road they efficiently dispatched the goblin raiders, although a wounded goblin did escape up the trail only to forgot his own snare trap, where the party found it hanging half-dead. After securing the oxen and cart, the group then set off up the trail and found the cave mouth that led to the lair of the Craig Maw goblins. I embellished here with a bit of purple prose as I found the initial description of the cave mouth a little dry. The party defeated the goblin guards, but took several wounds in the process and decided to take a short rest to heal a little more. Then the fun started.

They explored the cave mouth and had the dwarf use his darkvision to spot the wolves without drawing attention to themselves. The wizard, who’d had bad luck up to now cast a powerful sleep spell and sent two of the wolves to asleep, but a third in hiding ran out and attacked. After an epic battle in which two wolves were killed in single blows the group pushed on deeper into the wolf lair to find the chute that crawled up into the dark.

The dwarven cleric decide to use his climbing tools to ascend the chute, but then changed his mind, realising that hammering pitons into the cave wall would be very noisey. He fell slightly once, then reached the top and was able to see into the cave beyond, where two goblins, a wolf pet and something huge and furry sat upon a crude throne. Descending to tell the rest of the party, he slipped badly (rolling a 1) and fell. Taking enough damage to put him on 0 hp, the party realized he was dying so they desperately set about trying stabilize him. Thankfully they succeeded, but without his healing skills they carried him out of the cave and headed back to cart to rest overnight and revive him.

Failing from a great height!

Overall I thought the new rules are pretty effortless and fluid. I love the advantage/disadvantage system but hate that long rests completely heal characters as it removes any kind of attrition, especially in overland settings IMHO. Of course it’s D&D and an RPG so I can change what I don’t like, and so far there isn’t a lot of that at all.
 

Sailors On The Starless Sea play report 1.

Last Tuesday a reduced set of my general gaming group came to my place to have our first Dungeon Crawl Classics game. Overall it went well I thought, and I got positive feedback from the players. I’m hoping that as things get pulpier they’ll also start enjoying the settings as well as just the pure joy of rolling dice, roleplaying with good friends over a few beers.

I’m running Sailors On The Starless Sea, henceforth known as Sailors On The Sunless Sea because I called it that by mistake once, and it’s extra bleakness then appeal to me. In preparation I printed out copies of the 0 level character creation rules, weapons and armour pages from the DCC PDF, one for each player. I also printed out several blank versions of the excellent 4 characters per page PC sheets from Purple Sorcerer - http://purplesorcerer.com/create.htm

The players, Dan, Monkey, Michael and Toby all rolled up 4 funnel characters using the normal method. Only Monkey hadn’t been in my 4e campaign, so generally they got through the concepts very quickly. The only oddity was that three elves were rolled and no other races.  Then we began.

I added a little more flavour to the introduction around how the PC’s friends and family had disappeared from the village following the revival of the ruined Chaos keep.  I then read the standard introduction out. One of Dan’s characters had a spyglass with which scanned the ruins and spotted the Vine Horrors, writhing and briar riddled. The players started arguing over if it was night or day, I think Michael wanted them to have burning brands and pitchforks, which needed a night setting, but some measure of preservation held out and they agreed it was day time. I rule that if the players are arguing about the metagame, the characters are arguing in character about something, and this attracted the Vine Horrors who were then peppered with remarkably good shooting from bows.  Once the Vine Horrors reached the party good initiative rolls saved them from injury.

Then the party approached the ruins and upon seeing the portcullis and intact tower… split up! Yes you read that right. One group went to scale the tower using rope. This started well, with Monkey’s hunter making his first two climb rolls easily. He wanted to reach the roof, and this last ascent cost him his life. While he had cleverly tied the rope to the bars at each of the previous two floors windows, the rope mysteriously seemed to untie itself from it’s lasso on the crenulations. He only took a single d6 roll for damage, rather than the 3d6 he would have had he not tied himself off, but 5 points was enough to kill him. Another character went up to retrieve the body, which was swinging in the wind, but couldn’t revive him.

The second group started ducking under the portcullis when it collapsed down, almost injuring one of the characters, but splitting this second group into two.  Now the characters are in three groups. Those on the inside, dusted themselves off, looked around and headed for the ruined chapel. There they were met with the grisly sight of blacked skeletons and charred remains. Their immediate interest lay with the chainmail and weapons left behind, which they donned, ignoring the ghostly fire that swept through the chapel . Only then did they investigate the leering and bejeweled furry toad idol and fountain. One character saw a strange ripple on the surface of the black pool, but the others still approached and were met by the vile tar ooze. A dramatic fight ensued, in which the butcher was pulverised and burnt to death. After the battle they retreated back out without further investigation of the idol.

The tower group and those left behind at the portcullis regrouped and went to investigate the west side of the ruins where they found the partially collapsed wall.  

One of the characters spotted the danger here, but having been slighted by the character who wished to immediately climb the wall he cryptically declared it safe, and seconds later the climber was crushed to pulp beneath several tons of monolithic stone. I’m very lucky to have players who are more than willing to take cues from each other to make play more enjoyable, even at their own cost.

The wall’s collapse revealed the pit that seemed to lead to a portal outlined by ancient runes. At this point the characters all came together and descended. One of the sages knew these ancient symbols and deciphered the words, to which there was general confusion and very little analysis. My impression is that they haven’t yet taken on board that clues are generally there to protect against death. Then several of the characters worked together to shove the door open. Three of them died in the ensuing fiery explosion! High damage rolls meant even those who scrambled away were scorched to a crisp. But the door was open and the way ahead tantalized them with the tomb of the barbarian lord and his gleaming vorpal axe!

Here persistency paid off. The players tried repeated to get into the magically cold and icy room, eventually using rope tied to the waist of the most agile in their party. They then worked together to free to giant axe, and retreated before the numbing cold took them. However the echoing thunder and evil laughter that sounded out as they passed for the last time back through the portal may yet come to haunt them further. At this point we called it a night. I wrote up the deaths as follows :-

* The trapper Chi Rian was lost to us first, when he dashed his head upon the tower he was ascending with dubious rope.

* Brave Baldric Baldricson, radish farmer, passed to the better place holding the line against the vile Tar Ooze. * Tyle the butcher was crushed by the collapsing wall, he will be greatly mourned this wintermass. * Aura Frtiz The Wisewoman, Gribal Nubit notable Scribe and Rai Ock the blessed ropemaker were consumed in unholy fire before the quad curse’d gate.

So the party of villagers is down to ten characters and they have yet to enter the ruins themselves. Our next session is booked for Tuesday the 7^th of Jan, and I’ll write up their further adventures as they happen.  Next time I’ll make some food, as we’re not serviced by decent Pizza where I live, by which I mean the expensive sour dough kind. In the past when we’ve planned at Dan’s, and what used to be Toby and Monkey’s house share they made really good stews and every put in a few quid to pay for it, a tradition I’d like to extend.  

Using AD&D for 3rd age Middle Earth roleplaying – a quick and dirty guide.

A short collection of thoughts on running a Middle Earth campaign using AD&D rules.

Character creation

• There are no clerics, except for elven magic-user/clerics, who are restricted to magic-user weapons and armour usage, but may also wield longswords, shortswords and bows.
• Pure magic-users, illusionists and druids must be human and derive their powers from the same source, given to them by the Valar and is spiritual in nature. They are nominally lead by the 5 Istari Wizards (Saruman, Gandalf, Radagast, Morinehtar and Rómestámo ) who train all types by tend to favour certain classes, Saruman favouring magic-users, Gandalf favouring magic-users and druids, Radagast favouring druids, Morinehtar favouring magic-users and illusionists and Rómestámo favouring illusionists.  There is no magic-missile spell!
• There are no gnomes or paladins.
• Half-elves are considered High-men and half-elves are usually elves.
• Half-orcs are considered Uruk-hai, evil by all other races, and maybe challenging to play unless the party are in league with Sauron or Saruman. 

Bestiary

• Goblins, hobgoblins, orcs, bugbears and ogres are all types of goblins and orcs.
• Undead of all types. Nazghul are fighter/magic-user spectres.
• Will'o'wisps.
• Wyvern's without stings are fell beasts.
• Giant spiders of various sizes. Shelob being one of the largest.
• Hill giants are trolls.
• Stone giants.
• Balor demons are Balrogs. Other demons are hinted at throughout the books.
• Were-creatures.
• Dire wolves are worgs.
• Treants are ents. They can be used for evil or angry tree spirits.
• Faerie spirits are related to Tom Bombadil, and can be dryads, nymphs etc,.
• Creatures like carrion crawlers are hinted in the dark caverns of the world, and should be used as singular entities.
• The watcher in water could giant squid or even a hydra aka cold drake.
• Dragons and dragon like giant lizards.

Magic items

• These should mainly be arms and armour, often of elven manufacture and all individually named.
• Avoid very D&D themed miscellaneous items. 
• Herbs, properly harvested and applied can count as healing spells of various sorts.  Rangers, druids and elves are able to recognise such herbs on a % roll of 5x their level.

Birthday AD&D game

As part of my birthday celebrations I'm running N1 Against The Cult Of The Reptile God [spoilers] for a group of about 8 players on Saturday from 12pm-6pm (ish). I've not run 1st edition AD&D in a very long time and want to use some of the improvements that have come along with later editions. On top of that 8 players can be slow, even in 1st ed, so I've streamlined the combat even further, particularly around initiative and player order. Effectively what happens now is the following:-

• Optional surprise d6 roll based on class, with Thieves, Monks and Assassins being surprised on a 6+, Fighters, Paladins, Rangers, Clerics and Druids on a 5+ and Wizards and Illusionists being surprised on a 4+. Monsters such as Bugbears add to this roll. 
• The initial roll is made by the player who's character is unsurprised and has the highest dexterity rolls d6 and adds their reaction adjustment, as do all the monsters in similar fashion. Which ever team scores highest goes before the whole of the other team.
• Players take it in turns to do their move around the table. The starting player is the whoever is sitting closest to the DM's left or right, alternating left to right between each combat.

Other rules changes include positive Armour Class values, so that they are target values (e.g. Chainmail is normally AC 5, but is now AC 15 and therefore the base to-hit is 15+), spell mastery so that spellcasters can substitute their memorized spell with the spell they have chosen to master. (Often Cure Light Wounds or Magic Missile).

I've worked up a single page rules explanation cheat sheet with many of these based on the character sheet PDF, which can be downloaded here.  
 

Day 2, Hidden paths, deep and dangerous

So having defeated the wicked goblin cook and his rabble of staff, the brave adventuring party set about searching the large and chaotic kitchen of the Purple Bruise clan. A floor to celing wardrobe or cabinet yielded the first interesting find, in the form of a bound and gag human male. After some discussion as to what to do, the first instinct was to shut the cabinet again, the party release the prisoner, who is a tall, well muscled man named Druss. Druss is played by our Belgium Javascript Engineer Julien.

Druss remembers nothing about how he came to be found in hidden in a goblin kitchen, but was once a guard captain and the last thing he does recall is being a battle. Druss was rolled randomly using 4d6 for each stat in turn and produced a very physically strong character. The slayer subclass of the fighter fitted nicely and I suspect will decidedly help the party take down foes more quickly.

Helja the dwarf knight decided to search the cabinet some more, and it proved wise to do so as it had a false side. When he pulled away the hinged panel a delicate glass bottle of green gas slipped out from the top, but in an amazing piece of luck he caught the bottle (I rolled a 1). The high elf wizard, Riardon who seems to be rapidly becoming a pyromancer, found a box and layered it with material to transport the bottle, which is a suspected poison gas trap, around for later use.

Behind the panel Helja found a magical warhammer, his favourite weapon and two bags filled with gold coins and silver jewelry. It seems the cook had been hoarding things from his boss. Later Helja tried shouting the rune names found on the hammer and discovered it was a warhammer of thunder which could unleash lightning and thunder when it struck an enemy. He gave his precious old hammer to Druss, who also donned the chainmail vest of the goblin cook. Also stuffed into the area was old parchment map of what must be the surrounding area.

 

CC3 map

Then the party must have been blessed by the god of eagles, for they found not one but two well concealed secret door, going north and south as well as a silver dagger that the thief Lucan like the look of. He recounted a tale about how, when he was working as a fence, a thieves guild were buying silver weapons to fight against lycanthrope rivals. The secret doors were definitely too well concealed to be goblin made. Exploring the door to the south, the elven thief Lucan stealthy made he was along a rarely used narrow corridor that ended in a flight of steps upwards. Here he heard a screeching sound and out of the darkness shown many pairs of small red eyes. Then suddenly huge rats, some the size of dogs flew down and attacked. After putting an arrow into the first, biggest rat, Lucan retreat and a battle with giant and dire rats was joined. The party made a good tactical choice and boxed them in so that they only had to fight one at time. They dispatched the pack quickly, and remarkably none of the party succumbed to the filth fever the rats carried.

Rats in the walls!

After burning the bodies, the party explored further, finding the corridor leading away from the stair led to another secret door that opened into entrance corridor they'd fought in the day before. Then they followed the corridor up the stairs, and surmised that the dead end held a secret door that might lead to the area the goblin mapper had said the boss lived in. Not feeling ready for such a bold fight they decide to check out the northern secret door from the kitchen. It opened onto a short corridor at the end of which the thief could make out was a yet another secret door. The eagle-eyed god, Thurriak, had definitely blessed them, but it's a fickle gift if used without great care. Lucan boldly strode into the corridor and must have stepped on a pressure plate as large block of stone from ceiling fell on top of him, immediately knocking him out and crushing the life out of him. Druss and Riardon rushed forward to try and shift the block off of the body of the elf, but were too late even with Druss cleverly using his heroic effort to re-roll his athletics check. His organs had been pulped and the party had it's first death. I made Adam an award certificate in remembrance of Lucan's ignoble end.      
 

Lucan's death unlocks the second Dungeons & Dragons Essentials book - Heroes Of The Forgotten Kingdom. This means Adam has access to new races - half elves, half orcs, dragonborn and tieflings as well as the the new classes - druid, paladin, ranger and warlock. I'm not allowing drow in this campaign as they are, as intended in the original Greyhawk campaign, unremittingly evil. Another death will unlock further player options.

What the party don't know is that the original members, Thanus, Riardon and Helja have now made it to second level! 

School clubs, wargames vs roleplaying

While playing Carcassonne with my daughter and partner last night I was talking them about how I got into roleplaying and my daughter mentioned there was a Warhammer club at school. I think it’s a something of a shame that wargaming has taken back it’s position within schools as the major hobby game.

Now I like Warhammer and I play W40K a great deal, as well as involving and enjoying myself in modelling side of the hobby but I think it serves children and young adults far less than roleplaying. When I was a school, when perhaps Dungeons & Dragons was at its peak in the UK, there were 4-5 active groups in the afterschool club and the one I joined meant I made some life long friends. I’m sure this is true of wargamers too, but roleplaying helped teach me how to co-operate with a group of people with differing needs and desires and achieve those goals together, which is fundamentally what cooperative adventure gaming is. This is an ability that has helped me in my career and private life far more than being a strong competitive and tactical thinker. Co-operating with people with different goals to mine in a way that makes everyone happy happens every single day and I think it’s a shame that more schools, parents and games companies can’t come together in the same way that Games Workshop manages to do to bring roleplay gaming to children.

If I lived closer to her school I think I’d get a great deal out of running a roleplaying club there, although I’m not convinced she’d stay playing for long, but she would be more interested in it that the Warhammer club, at which there are no girls I believe.